Morteza Ghobakhloo, Mohammad Iranmanesh, Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik, Muhammad Faraz Mubarak · 6 authors
Abstract Blockchain technology is a core technology expected to play a highly instrumental role in competing with socioenvironmental challenges. The literature hypothesizes various blockchain functions for building a sustainable business ecosystem. This study unifies these diverse perspectives into an interpretive strategy roadmap that provides a holistic overview of how blockchain should be leveraged to deliver sustainability functions optimally. The study first identified the sustainability functions of blockchain through a content‐centric literature review. The study applied interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and drew on experts' opinions to model how and in which order blockchain delivers these sustainability functions. The study further drew on the ISM output and interpretive logic‐knowledge base to develop the promised roadmap. Results revealed that blockchain promotes a decentralized decision system that facilitates automation and real‐time information sharing (RIS) across supply chains. Blockchain introduces traceability and transparency into supply chain operations. These conditions offer monitoring of business operations and the development of trust across value‐chain stakeholders. These driver functions lead to value chain optimization and circularity integration into business and supply chain operations. When these necessary functional conditions are met, businesses can further draw on blockchain to promote economic and environmental aspects of sustainability through more complex functions enabling resource efficiency, cost reduction, pollution prevention, and higher profit margins. The order in which businesses can leverage these functions would define blockchain sustainability performance. Each function is uniquely valuable to sustainability, and none of them can be overlooked.
Cristina Regueiro, Aitor Gómez-Goiri, N. A. Pedrosa, Christos Semertzidis · 6 authors
As the global population continues to grow, the enormous stress on our environment and resources is becoming impossible to ignore. A focus on producing and consuming as cheap as possible has created an economy in which objects are briefly used and then discarded as waste, featuring a linear lifecycle that creates an enormous amount of waste. The alternative to the linear economy "take-make-waste" is called the “circular economy”. Under this paradigm, materials are recycled to build new products or components that are designed and built to promote their reuse and refurbishment. This assures the continuous (re-)exploitation of existing resources, reducing the extraction of new raw materials. However, customers often reject these reused or refurbished products under the suspicion that they do not meet the same usability, safety, or performance levels of new products. In this sense, trustworthy records of historical details of refurbished products could increase consumers’ confidence in products and components of the "circular economy", prioritizing trustworthiness, reliability, and transparency. This work presents a new certification tool based on blockchain technology to guarantee trusted, accurate, transparent and traceable lifecycle information of products and their components and to generate trustworthy certificates to probe refurbished product historical details. This tool aims to enhance refurbished product visibility by creating the basis for making the circular economy a reality in any domain.
The building industry is one of the most resource-intensive sectors in industrialized countries, requiring a shift from a linear to a more sustainable circular economic model. Nevertheless, there are several major challenges, such as the management of information regarding used materials and products, the lack of cross-sector documentation tools, and sales operations for implementing a dynamic circular economy in the building industry. To overcome these challenges, blockchain technology for documentation, tracing used materials and products, and the use of multi-criteria decision-making approaches for the ranking and selection of optimal used materials and products have emerged as crucial facilitators, with the potential to address the technological, organizational, environmental, and economic requirements. The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical framework of a digital platform ecosystem for implementing a dynamic circular economy in the building industry through the integration of blockchain technology and a multi-criteria decision-making approach built upon their synergy. The priority order of two alternatives of used materials and products was determined according to the AHP method, leading to selection of the most sustainable alternative. This research study contributes to dynamic circular economies by (1) facilitating cross-sector information transparency and the tracing of used materials and products from their sources to their end-of-life stages and through (2) the ranking and selection of used materials and products based on their overall properties.
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.
The current state of recycling systems is marked by significant impediments to their efficacy. A lack of transparency often pervades these systems, which may result in an increased likelihood of fraudulent and corrupt activity. Additionally, traceability pertaining to recycled materials frequently proves inadequate. Together, these inefficiencies in the collection and processing of recyclables can lead to higher costs and environmental impact. Furthermore, low incentives may deter individuals and businesses from participating in recycling initiatives. Certain recycling systems may also suffer from limited compatibility with specific materials, further reducing their effectiveness. To address these challenges, we propose a permissioned Ethereum blockchain-based system that aims to incentivise and encourage recycling practices in a transparent and secure manner. The platform’s modular and multi-layered design makes it adaptable to various recycling scenarios, allowing it to handle diverse types of recyclable materials. Automated and streamlined recycling processes are achieved through the use of smart contracts. The proposed system offers a secure, transparent, and efficient platform for the management of recycling processes, promoting environmentally responsible behaviour towards a circular economy. Potential applications for the system include waste disposal and recycling management for smart cities, waste management for organisations, and tracking and management of operations for recycling companies. The platform is highly versatile and can accommodate various use cases in the recycling industry, including those involving traceable and untraceable materials, as well as individual and corporate use cases.
Assia Chadly, Haya R. Hasan, Karim Moawad, Khaled Salah · 6 authors
The supply chain of rare earth metals plays a crucial role in producing thin-film solar photovoltaics (PVs), which are vital for renewable energy generation. However, this supply chain is often characterized by opacity, inefficiencies, and security concerns especially since those rare earth metals come from mainly one supplier, China. Also, the solar PVs’ certificates are purely technical and fail to consider the ethical sourcing and sustainable supply chain management conditions of mining. The working conditions of the miners are often neglected and are least prioritized. In this paper, a blockchain-based solution was proposed to leverage the intrinsic decentralized blockchain features including traceability, transparency, non-repudiation, and accountability in the supply chain of thin-film solar PVs, to safeguard not only the technical conditions of the mined products but also the ethical conditions of the workers during mining. Ethical mines must uphold good safety standards, pay their workers a fair wage, adhere to working hours, and legal working age. The solution paves the way to ethical mining where the certification of the PVs is not granted unless both technical and ethical conditions are met. The supply chain of thin-film PVs that goes from mining the rare earth metals in China, where more than 70% of the rare earth metals used are extracted from, to the disposal at the end-of-life (EOL) of the PVs was presented. Smart contracts to enable the on-chain traceability of the registration, manufacturing, assessment, delivery, and disposal of PVs were developed. The solution exploits the tamper-proof logs of the distributed ledger to ensure accountability and record transactions as part of the data provenance. The proposed solution includes a system design with sequence diagrams, smart contracts with algorithms, and a testing and analysis section.
As electric vehicles become more popular, battery swap stations are gaining attention as a new type of charging facility. However, the charging process for electric vehicles involves privacy information such as user location and charging mode, which can be easily stolen or leaked, posing security risks and personal privacy concerns for users. Therefore, protecting the privacy of electric vehicle battery swap station users has become an important issue. This paper aims to study a privacy protection system for electric vehicle battery swap stations using blockchain technology. First, the basic principles and application scenarios of blockchain technology are introduced. Second, potential privacy leaks in electric vehicle battery swap stations are analysed, and a privacy protection scheme based on blockchain is proposed, including anonymous identity authentication, zero-knowledge proof, and encrypted communication. Third, a blockchain-based privacy protection system for electric vehicle battery swap stations is designed and implemented, and its performance is experimentally evaluated and compared with traditional privacy protection schemes in terms of security and efficiency. This paper demonstrates that the blockchain-based privacy protection scheme for electric vehicle battery swap stations possesses high levels of security and reliability, effectively safeguarding users' privacy information. Furthermore, this scheme exhibits promising application prospects and potential for widespread adoption. With the continuous development and utilization of blockchain technology, the privacy protection scheme for electric vehicle battery swap stations using blockchain is expected to provide users with more secure, reliable, and convenient charging services.
Swati Bula Patil, Snehal Rahul Rathi, Ganesh C. Shelke, Shalini Vaibhav Wankhede · 7 authors
In recent times, there has been a rampant proliferation of counterfeit products that has left a trail of devastation in the manufacturing sectors. The repercussions of this extend to companies, impacting their brand reputation, revenue streams and overall profitability. Industries like agriculture, banking, electronics, and high-value deliveries uses the emergence of blockchain technology as a powerful tool to discern between authentic and counterfeit items. Its potential as a means to curtail the influx of fake products in the market is substantial. Blockchain technology, at its core, operates as a decentralized and distributed digital ledger system, meticulously recording transactions within interconnected blocks across multiple databases. The inherent security of this technology ensures the immutability of these blocks, rendering them invulnerable to alteration or hacking. By leveraging blockchain technology, consumers can independently verify the authenticity of a product, eliminating the need for reliance on third-party intermediaries. Incorporating recent technological advancements, the utilization of Quick Response (QR) codes offers a robust approach to combat the proliferation of counterfeit goods. The integration of blockchain technology with QR codes serves as a means to uphold the integrity of products. This innovative system securely stores product details and unique codes in the form of blocks, where QR codes play a pivotal role in collecting and matching these unique codes with entries in the blockchain database. If the QR code matches with entries in the database, the user receives a confirmation of the product's authenticity; otherwise, an alert is triggered, signaling the presence of a counterfeit product.
Amin Jan, Anas A. Salameh, Haseeb Ur Rahman, Mohanad M. Alasiri
Abstract The nexus between manufacturing firms and the green environment is unavoidable. It is merely due to the huge waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions resulting from large‐scale production and complex supply chain management processes involved in manufacturing firms. Continuation of the traditional business practices during Industry 4.0 made it impossible for the manufacturing firm to commit to green environmental practices and comply with environmental SDGs. At odd, it requires novel business strategies to ensure compliance of manufacturing firms with environmental sustainable development goals (SDGs). Blockchain is an ideal technology for delivering green environmental‐related information because it offers real‐time, shareable, and entirely transparent data kept on an immutable ledger that is accessible to members of a network. These green environmental‐related information received in real‐time through blockchain technology help in the transformation of the traditional supply chain management practices into a more green supply chain management practice. This green transformation ensures business compliance with environmental SDGs and that compliance is shared with multiple stakeholders through blockchain technology in real‐time, thus approving a positive mediating role of green supply chain management practices between blockchain technology and environmental SDGs performance. The proposed strategic framework through various propositions development will mainly offer policy insights toward ( a ) identifying novel antecedents of blockchain technology, ( b ) offering insights toward upgrading the traditional supply chain management framework into a green supply chain management framework, and ( c ) illuminating novel mediating role of green supply chain management practices between blockchain technology and environmental SDGs performance.
The high jewelry industry, and its supply chain, are considered complex systems that have positively affected the global economy as well as potentially harmed the environment and society due to its resources exploitation. As a consequence, consumers are increasingly demanding for sustainable processes that guarantee traceability through the extraction and manufacturing phases. The aim of this paper is to present and evaluate potential solutions for the traceability of high jewelry raw materials. First of all, this paper is intended to analyze how recent initiatives have demonstrated that the mining process is the most challenging one in terms of sustainability. Secondly, the paper focuses on Information technologies, including Blockchain-based technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Non-Fungible Token (NFT) and Near Field Communication (NFC). To address this issue, high jewelry companies and organizations have started integrating these technologies providing superior alternative in terms of verifiability, traceability, and security in comparison to paper-based methods. To this end, this paper offers a detailed overview of current methods of traceability for precious high jewelry raw materials, including gold, diamonds, and colored gemstones. In conclusion, the paper presents a comparison of different methods of traceability available, considering and evaluating opportunities and challenges for existing methods as well as potential new initiatives.
Blockchain technology is an immutable digital ledger of transactions that can be shared across a network of computers to make the process of recording transactions and tracking assets more efficient. This emerging technology drew considerable interest in smart grid and energy sectors. With the expansion of the industrial age, there is a great demand for electricity in the present system. The smart grid concept was offered to efficiently distribute electricity with minimal losses and a high level of supply security. This concept helped to convert energy consumers into producers (such as excess energy produced by solar panels) who can sell excess power back to the grid. This approach, however, adds to the complexity of the existing system, such as how a transaction between producers and consumers is carried out, authorised, and documented. The introduction of blockchain technology in the electricity supply chain guarantees transparent and secure systems. This chapter describes how blockchain can be integrated into smart grid architecture to supply the electricity in a transparent, authenticated, secure and reliable system. The proposed decentralised and distributed solution aims to preserve the supply chain ecosystem in the smart grid.
Process automation and mass customisation requirements of modern manufacturing systems are driven by artificial intelligence (AI). As AI derives decisions from data, securing the data against tampering is crucial to prevent ensuing operational risks. Additionally, manufacturing systems necessitate collaboration, transparency, and trust among participants while preserving a competitive advantage. Thus, we position blockchain, an enabler of transparent and secure operations, as a security solution for AI-assisted manufacturing systems. In this conceptual viewpoint paper, we present a framework to integrate blockchain in AI-assisted manufacturing systems. We highlight the special needs of manufacturing BCs over generic BCs. We delineate the ways in which manufacturing can be a beneficiary of the synergy between AI and BC. We discuss how BC and AI can accelerate early-phase product design, collaboration, and manufacturing processes and secure supply chains against counterfeit products and for ethical consumerism. Lastly, we identify the needs of modern manufacturing systems and cite a few examples of organisational failures to underscore the importance of security while delineating the significant challenges in adopting blockchain-based solutions in the manufacturing industry.
Pedro Vieira de Azevedo, Jorge Gomes, Mário Rom�ão
Supply chains can span a huge number of countries, cross many borders, and require interoperation of a multitude of organizations. This vastness impacts business competitiveness since it adds complexity and can difficult securing traceability, chain of custody, and transparency. The authors propose that assuring chain of custody and traceability via blockchain allows organizations to demonstrate product provenance, integrity, and compliance. This work proposes that to effect true traceability the more complete approach is to connect both the supply chain actors (SCAs) and products identifications using digital certificates. A blockchain is used to manage the traceability of products and validation of the identities. Importing, verifying, and storing the certificates uses an off-chain data storage solution for products certificates. To create, validate the certificates, and setup the chain of trust, a public key infrastructure (PKI) was designed as part of the proposal. The results were architectural artifacts, including an Ethereum smart contract and a PKI-based certificate authentication system.
Akshay Kulkarni, Hrishav Bhattarai, Talha Hussain Syed, Mohammed Niamat
The globalization of integrated circuits (IC) faces threats from possible untrusted participants involved. One of the challenges faced is Intellectual Property (IP) piracy, which causes major revenue losses to third-party IP vendors (3PIP vendors) and design houses. The design reuse concept trending recently is further compounding this issue. In addition, a dubious actor can reverse-engineer a layout design file to obtain the gate-level netlist and claim ownership of the design. Substantial research has been done in this area to protect IP from being stolen and pirated, however, with the sophistication of attacks, a new dimension of research has been the need of the hour to combat the malicious activities on hardware IP. The presented work proposes a technique of hardware IP transfer by converting the layout file as a non-fungible token (NFT). NFT being a blockchain-powered concept, significant features such as decentralization, uniqueness, etc., are employed in this investigation. A case study with simulation results is presented to illustrate the technique. The smart contract for the proposed work is developed in Solidity language and tested locally on Remix IDE. With this technique, not only the IP can be protected but also the guilty party can be identified accountable for the untrustful act.
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Quality management (QM) of additive manufacturing (AM) processes is currently immature in terms of transparency, traceability and security. In particular, quality-relevant documents are not documented and communicated in a traceable and transparent manner, which often leads to quality deficiencies. However, combining AM with blockchain technology can enable a solution that maps the AM value chain digitally, transparently, traceably and securely in a part record. In this work, a quality assurance (QA) concept for the metal-based material extrusion (MEX) process is developed that enables a digital representation of the value chain in the form of an AM part record. The decentralized solution presented in this work uses an architecture consisting of a web application for data acquisition, a decentralized storage solution for storing larger amounts of data, a smart contract for capturing manufacturing events and the Ethereum blockchain for transparent, secure and traceable storage of blockchain data. The AM part record enables traceable and constantly available digital documentation of quality information. The cost-effectiveness of the solution is also shown in a demonstration study. The research results highlight the benefits of a blockchain-based AM part record for digital manufacturing documentation and represent an efficient alternative or extension to existing QM and QA solutions in AM.
Open access
Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies
Rahim Zahedi, Alireza Aslani, Mohammad Ali Nasle Seraji
An unprecedented emergence has occurred for the cryptocurrencies among enterprises, customers, and investors as a result of the growing number of internet connections worldwide. The most popular cryptocurrency is Bitcoin representing the rise of digital payment systems. Though, harsh criticism has been also created for cryptocurrencies about their environmental sustainability and power consumption, decelerating the acceptance of bitcoin by consumer as a means of payment. The ecological impact or footprint of a process is determined mainly through life-cycle-assessment (LCA) quantifying all material flows’ inputs and outputs for a process or product and their effect on the environment. This study provides LCA-based framework to show the environmental impacts of Bitcoin mining from top ten miner countries (China, USA, Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Malaysia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Norway). The results show that with the share of 53.3% of the world’s mining, China has the most negative environmental impact specially in marine ecotoxicity with 26.8 kg 1,4-DCB and human health with 0.0043 DALY but with the equal mining ratio Germany and Kazakhstan have the most negative environmental impacts.
Zhu-Jun Wang, Zhen‐Song Chen, Lu Xiao, Qin Su · 6 authors
Industry 5.0 has introduced a novel interpretation of sustainable supply chains (SSCs) that emphasizes the importance of building a transparent and trustworthy network that can be continuously monitored and controlled through stakeholder collaboration as well as the use of advanced, intelligent machinery. The ultimate goal of SSCs is to meet specific economic, social, and environmental standards. The implementation of blockchain technology can significantly improve the reliability, efficiency, and security of the information exchanged among stakeholders in SSCs. However, these stakeholders inevitably possess varying informational advantages and exhibit divergent perspectives regarding the adoption of blockchain technology. This paper thus aims to examine the impediments to the adoption of blockchain technology in the context of SSCs with the goal of promoting blockchain adoption. To achieve this objective, this study analyzes the barriers to blockchain adoption from the perspectives of various stakeholders in SSCs and constructs a barrier severity assessment model that utilizes group decision-making methods to integrate all stakeholders’ attitudes. This study employs the PEEST (political, economic, environmental, social, and technological) framework to identify 27 barriers to the adoption of blockchain technology. Subsequently, an expertise-based group decision-making approach is used to quantify the prominence of various barriers according to various types of stakeholders. The results indicate that the five most intense barriers are storage constraints, insufficient economic incentives, high integration costs, a lack of functional appeal, and ambiguity regarding data disclosure and public data management regulations. This research makes novel theoretical and practical contributions, as it takes an empirical and all-encompassing approach to identifying obstacles to the adoption of blockchain technology and provides valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners to reference in overcoming these obstacles.
Walaa AlKhader, Raja Jayaraman, Khaled Salah, Andrei Sleptchenko · 6 authors
Purpose Quality 4.0 (Q4.0) leverages new emerging technologies to achieve operational excellence and enhance performance. Implementing Q4.0 in digital manufacturing can bring about reliable, flexible and decentralized manufacturing. Emerging technologies such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Blockchain and Interplanetary File Storage (IPFS) can all be utilized to realize Q4.0 in digital manufacturing. NFTs, for instance, can provide traceability and property ownership management and protection. Blockchain provides secure and verifiable transactions in a manner that is trusted, immutable and tamper-proof. This research paper aims to explore the concept of Q4.0 within digital manufacturing systems and provide a novel solution based on Blockchain and NFTs for implementing Q4.0 in digital manufacturing. Design/methodology/approach This study reviews the relevant literature and presents a detailed system architecture, along with a sequence diagram that demonstrates the interactions between the various participants. To implement a prototype of the authors' system, the authors next develop multiple Ethereum smart contracts and test the algorithms designed. Then, the efficacy of the proposed system is validated through an evaluation of its cost-effectiveness and security parameters. Finally, this research provides other potential applications and scenarios across diverse industries. Findings The proposed solution's smart contracts governing the transactions among the participants were implemented successfully. Furthermore, the authors' analysis indicates that the authors' solution is cost-effective and resilient against commonly known security attacks. Research limitations/implications This study represents a pioneering endeavor in the exploration of the potential applications of NFTs and blockchain in the attainment of a comprehensive quality framework (Q4.0) in digital manufacturing. Presently, the body of research on quality control or assurance in digital manufacturing is limited in scope, primarily focusing on the products and production processes themselves. However, this study examines the other vital elements, including management, leadership and intra- and inter-organizational relationships, which are essential for manufacturers to achieve superior performance and optimal manufacturing outcomes. Practical implications To facilitate the achievement of Q4.0 and empower manufacturers to attain outstanding quality and gain significant competitive advantages, the authors propose the integration of Blockchain and NFTs into the digital manufacturing framework, with all related processes aligned with an organization's strategic and leadership objectives. Originality/value This study represents a pioneering endeavor in the exploration of the potential applications of NFTs and blockchain in the attainment of a comprehensive quality framework (Quality 4.0) in digital manufacturing. Presently, the body of research on quality control or assurance in digital manufacturing is limited in scope, primarily focusing on the products and production processes themselves. However, this study examines the other vital elements, including management, leadership and intra- and inter-organizational relationships, which are essential for manufacturers to achieve superior performance and optimal manufacturing outcomes.
This paper analyzes the current status of the engineering supervision process in construction and infrastructure projects in China. It discusses the existing problems, such as low efficiency of supervision, distorted monitoring data, resource waste, and environmental damage. Based on extensive literature research and combining the consensus mechanism, ECDSA encryption algorithm and so on, the paper proposes the idea of integrating blockchain technology with the engineering supervision process. This includes the decision of blockchain type, the use of digital signature technology to implement responsibility, and the construction of a hybrid blockchain system using the blockchain's consensus mechanism. The paper presents the general design, the design of the system structures, and the design of modules of the system. Through this system, project participants can verify their identities and share sensitive information confidentially, thereby improving the efficiency of supervision work and preventing data forgery, reducing resource waste, decreasing carbon emissions, and minimizing environmental damage.
A green supply chain economy considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors improves the chances of functional growth through minimal risk factors. The implication of sophisticated technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the blockchain improves the optimization and evaluation of ESG performance. An IIoT-Blockchain-based Supply Chain Economy Evaluation (IB-SCEE) model is introduced to identify and reduce functional growth risk factors. The proposed model uses green blockchain technology to identify distinct transactions’ economic demands and supply distribution. The flaws and demands in the circular economy process are validated using the IIoT forecast systems relying on ESG convenience. The minimal and maximum risks are identified based on economic and distribution outcomes. The present investigation highlights the significance of ongoing ESG-conceptualized research into blockchain-based supply chain economics. Companies who recognize the blockchain’s potential can improve corporate governance, environmental impact, and social good by increasing transparency, traceability, and accountability. A more sustainable and responsible future for global supply chains can be shaped through further research and development in this field, which will make a substantial contribution to the scientific world. This information is individually held in the green blockchain for individual risk factor analysis. The proposed model improves the recommendation and evaluation rate and reduces the risk factors with controlled evaluation time.