Blockchain and Nested Tokens for Tracking, Reusing, and Recycling Batteries

Abstract

The growing demand for batteries, in particular lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, brings attention to new challenging issues such as second-life for batteries and tracking and recycling of critical raw materials. This study suggests a solution to the problem of tracking batteries along the supply chain and their recycling process. The use of nested tokens allows battery transactions to be tracked and information about raw materials inside them to be retrieved with an easy accounting of those. The joint use of blockchain and distributed data storage solutions like IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) guarantees the availability, integrity and non-repudiation of the data and allows interoperation with digital twin models. A smart contract system allows each actor of the business model to carry out only the operations for which he is authorized through the use of rules and certifications issued by a regulator. A prototype was realized and a cost analysis of used gas and the equivalent costs in USD was carried out for the Ethereum and Polygon blockchain networks.