Abstract— The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of moisture content and separation temperature on oil extraction from Spent Coffee Grounds (SCG). SCG is the wet residue which contains approximately 12-16 wt% oil and >50 wt% moisture. In this work SCG containing 16 wt% oil and 0-80 wt% moisture was used. The Soxhlet extraction method was used with the following solvents; methyl, ethyl and propyl alcohols. The highest oil recovery for isopropanol (10.4 %) was obtained at 60 % moisture, while for ethanol (11.2 %) at 40 % moisture and for methanol (10.8 %) it was obtained on a dry sample. The highest oil extractions were achieved at a separation temperature of 15°C.The refractive index (RI) and free fatty acid (FFA) of the extracted oil was observed to vary depending on the moisture content. Oil extracted using hexane had highest amounts of FFA as compared to the oils extracted using alcohols. Keywords— Free Fatty Acids, Moisture content, Non- distillation, Oil extraction I. INTRODUCTION ON-distillation oil extraction has received little attention in the last two decades, this might be due to a well- established hexane oil extraction process. The search for alternative solvents to extract oils from oilseeds has regained attention mainly due to the risk of fire and growing environmental concerns related to the use of n-Hexane [1]. Replacing n-hexane with a bio-renewable solvent is desirable, as bio-renewable solvents such as alcohols are good for oil extraction especially at elevated temperatures [2]. Methyl, ethyl and isopropyl alcohols are good solvents for Nancy R Mojapelo is with the Department of Chemical Engineering Technology, University of Johannesburg, Doornfontein, Johannesburg 2028 (email: mojapelo.neo@gmail.com) Edison Muzenda is with Process Energy and Environmental Technology Station, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 17011, Doornfontein 2028, Johannesburg, South Africa (corresponding author to provide phone: +27 11 559 6817 ; fax: +27 11 559 6430 ; email: emuzenda@uj.ac.za). Liberty L Mguni is with Department of Chemical Engineering, National University of Science and Technology, Cnr Gwanda Rd and Cecil Av, PO Box 939, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (email: liberty.mguni@nust.ac.zw). Ambali S Abdulkareem is with the Chemical Engineering Department, University of South Africa, P/Bag X6, Florida 1710, Johannesburg, South Africa and Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Federal University of Technology, PMB 65 Minna Niger State. Nigeria, e-mail: kasaka2003@yahoo.com Ayo S Afolabi is with the Chemical Engineering Department, University of South Africa, P/Bag X6, Florida 1710, Johannesburg, South Africa, Tel:0027114713617; Fax:0027114713054; e-mail; afolaas@unisa.ac.za the extraction of vegetable oils, but methyl alcohol is of little interest commercially because of its toxicity. However, in our previous work we have shown the potential of using methanol [3] for oil extraction especially for biodiesel production since methanol is one of the reagents used. These solvents can all be produced by fermentation of bio-renewable resources. Methanol and ethanol can be produced directly by fermentation even though the preferred method for producing methanol is from synthesis gas. However, isopropanol is produced indirectly by reducing acetone obtained from corn fermentation. There are a number of advantages of using alcohols including; reduced energy consumption up to 25 % by using non-distillation process compared to hexane oil extraction process [4], high quality oil with low free fatty acids and finally it has been reported to improve industrial safety due to higher flash point compared to n-hexane (-23.3 °C) [1]. Coffee is the most important agricultural commodity in the world and is second only to petroleum in global trade activity and value [5]. The remaining spent coffee grounds (SCG) after the coffee making process contains water greater than 50wt%. The residues are very toxic such that only small quantities can be used to make compost or for animal feeding such that the rest is discarded as waste [6]. The oil extracted from SCG compared to other waste sources such as cooking oil, animal fat and other biomass residues, oil from SCG has a number of benefits. These benefits include; being less expensive, higher stability in a sense that the oil does not decompose quickly (due to its high antioxidant content), has a pleasant smell and a relatively low level of saponifiable matter making the oil remain viscous and not congeal easily [7-9], thus making it very well suited to use in biodiesel production. Similar to other waste sources SCG oil has relatively high levels of free fatty acids (FFAs) (3.65 %), which is above the satisfactory limit of 0.5 %-1 % for one- step alkaline transesterification [10] and favours side reactions such as soap formation during transesterification reaction when using a base catalysts, especially when hexane is used as a solvent. SCG is normally produced with moisture content above 50 wt%. It would be ideal to extract the oil without having to remove this water from SCG and this would save energy required to dry the SCG. Therefore, in this work we investigated the effect of moisture content on the extraction of oil from SCG using non-distillation process. The solvents discussed are methanol, ethanol and propanol. Effect of Moisture Quantity on Non-Distillation Oil Extraction from SCG Using C 1 -C 3 Alcohols Nancy R Mojapelo, Edison Muzenda, Liberty L Mguni, Ambali S Abdulkareem, and Ayo S Afolabi N 6th Int'l Conf. on Green Technology, Renewable Energy & Environmental Engg. (ICGTREEE'2014) Nov. 27-28, 2014 Cape Town (SA) 202