Balancing of recyclable material amounts in product ecosystems

Abstract

The invention relates to the field of sustainability, in particular to the field of managing recyclable materials to improve circularity of such recyclable materials. The disclosure relates to methods, apparatuses, systems, decentral network nodes and computer elements for allocating amounts of recyclable materials associated with material owners to virtual material account(s) and for allocating amounts of recyclable material(s) stored in such virtual material account(s) to produced chemical product(s) by generating chemical product passport(s) associated with such produced chemical product(s). The disclosure further relates chemical product(s) associated with such chemical product passport(s).

Description

[0001] BALANCING OF RECYCLABLE MATERIAL AMOUNTS IN PRODUCT ECOSYSTEMS

[0002] TECHNICAL FIELD

[0003] The invention relates to the field of sustainability, in particular to the field of managing recyclable materials to improve circularity of such recyclable materials. The disclosure relates to methods, apparatuses, systems, decentral network nodes and computer elements for allocating amounts of recyclable materials associated with material owners to virtual material account(s) and for allocating amounts of recyclable material(s) stored in such virtual material account(s) to produced chemical product(s) by generating chemical product passport(s) associated with such produced chemical product(s). The disclosure further relates chemical product(s) associated with such chemical product passport(s).

[0004] TECHNICAL BACKGROUND

[0005] The environmental impact of end products is of great interest. Reduction of such environmental impact may be achieved by using circular systems in which material contained in end products or components thereof is recycled to allow production of new chemical products from the recycled material. Transparency on the amount of recyclable material contained within produced end products can aid in improving recycling rates and allows to allocate a recycled content resulting from recycling of end products containing such material to newly produced chemical products, hence allowing to reduce the environmental impact of the production chain associated with the production of the end product. However, transparency on the amount of recyclable material is hindered by the fact that such material is contained in numerous end products. Hence, there is a need to develop methods and systems allowing a balancing of amounts of recyclable material contained within end products to enable allocation of recycled content associated with the recycling of such recyclable materials to newly produced chemical products and end products produced therefrom.

[0006] SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0007] Disclosed is in one aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for allocating amount(s) of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the method comprising the steps of:

[0008] • providing data related to the material owner and data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material;

[0009] • gathering - based on the provided data - end product data and / or component data via a decentral network;

[0010] • aggregating the gathered data by applying at least one aggregation rule to the gathered data;

[0011] • determining the amount(s) of recyclable material by applying at least one transformation rule to the aggregated data; allocating via an accounting transaction the determined amount(s) of recyclable material to at least one virtual material account.

[0012] Disclosed is in a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for allocating amount(s) of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the method comprising the steps of:

[0013] • providing data related to the material owner and data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material;

[0014] • gathering - based on the provided data - end product data and / or component data via a decentral network;

[0015] • determining an amount of the recyclable material per end product or component thereof by applying at least one transformation rule to the gathered data;

[0016] • allocating via an accounting transaction the determined amount of recyclable material to at least one virtual material account;

[0017] • aggregate at least a part of the amounts of recyclable material stored in the at least one virtual material account;

[0018] • allocating via a further accounting transaction the aggregated amount of recyclable material to at least one virtual material account.

[0019] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect an apparatus for allocating amount(s) of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the apparatus comprising:

[0020] • a data providing interface configured to provide data related to the material owner and data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material;

[0021] • a decentral network interface configured to gather - based on the provided data - end product data and / or component data via a decentral network;

[0022] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account for balancing amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0023] • a material crediting system configured to o aggregate the gathered data by applying at least one aggregation rule to the gathered data, o determine the amount(s) of recyclable material by applying at least one transformation rule to the aggregated data, and o allocate via an accounting transaction the determined amount of recyclable material to at least one of the provided virtual material accounts.

[0024] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect an apparatus for allocating amount(s) of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the apparatus comprising:

[0025] • a data providing interface configured to provide data related to the material owner and data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material; • a decentral network interface configured to gather - based on the provided data - end product data and / or component data via a decentral network;

[0026] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account for balancing amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0027] • a material crediting system configured to o determine an amount of the recyclable material per end product or component thereof by applying at least one transformation rule to the gathered data; o allocate via an accounting transaction the determined amount of recyclable material to at least one of the provided virtual material accounts; o aggregate at least a part of the amounts of recyclable material stored in the at least one virtual material account; o allocate via a further accounting transaction the aggregated amount of recyclable material to at least one virtual material account.

[0028] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to recyclable material(s) associated with a material owner to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the method comprising:

[0029] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0030] • providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0031] • determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s), in particular wherein the amounts of recyclable material have been allocated to the virtual material account(s) based on data associated with end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material;

[0032] • allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s)

[0033] - amount(s) of the recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s)

[0034] - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0035] • optionally providing the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport.

[0036] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to recyclable material(s) associated with a material owner to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the method comprising:

[0037] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0038] • providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0039] • determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s), in particular wherein the amounts of recyclable material have been allocated to the virtual material account(s) based on data associated with end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material;

[0040] • allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s)

[0041] - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier;

[0042] • providing the amount of recyclable material allocated to the chemical product identifier for generating

[0043] - based on the allocated amount of recyclable material - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material.

[0044] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect an apparatus for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to recyclable material(s) associated with a material owner to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the apparatus comprising:

[0045] • a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0046] • a rule provider configured to provide at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0047] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account storing amount(s) of recyclable material(s), in particular wherein the amounts of recyclable material have been allocated to the virtual material account based on data associated with end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material;

[0048] • a material debiting system configured to o determine via the allocation rule(s) provided virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s), and o allocate - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s); optionally a decentral network interface configured to provide the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport.

[0049] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect an apparatus for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to recyclable material(s) associated with a material owner to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the apparatus comprising:

[0050] • a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0051] • a rule provider configured to provide at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0052] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account storing amount(s) of recyclable material(s), in particular wherein the amounts of recyclable material have been allocated to the virtual material account based on data associated with end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material;

[0053] • a material debiting system configured to o determine via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); o allocate - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier;

[0054] • a data providing interface configured to provide the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier for generating - based on the allocated amount of recyclable material - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s).

[0055] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for generating a chemical product passport associated with a chemical product produced from one or more input material(s) by a chemical production, wherein the chemical product is associated with a chemical product identifier, the method comprising:

[0056] • providing amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier, wherein the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) is / are allocated according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0057] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product including the chemical product identifier, • providing at least one decentral identifier associated with the data associated with the produced chemical product(s)

[0058] • generating the chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier, the at least one decentral identifier, at least a part of the data associated with the produced chemical product(s) and data related to the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier;

[0059] • optionally providing the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport(s).

[0060] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect an apparatus for generating a chemical product passport associated with a chemical product produced from one or more input material(s) by a chemical production, wherein the chemical product is associated with a chemical product identifier, the apparatus comprising:

[0061] • a material debiting system configured to provide amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier, wherein the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) is / are allocated according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0062] • a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including the chemical product identifier,

[0063] • a decentral identifier provider configured to provide at least one decentral identifier associated with the data associated with the produced chemical product(s)

[0064] • a chemical product passport generator configured to generate the chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier, the at least one decentral identifier, at least a part of the data associated with the produced chemical product(s) and data related to the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier;

[0065] • optionally a decentral network interface configured to provide the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport(s).

[0066] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to recyclable material(s) to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the method comprising:

[0067] • allocating amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to at least one virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0068] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0069] • providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0070] • determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); • allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s)

[0071] - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s)

[0072] - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0073] • optionally providing the generated product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the product passport.

[0074] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for monitoring environmental impact of a chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to recyclable material(s), the method comprising:

[0075] • allocating amount(s) of the recyclable material(s) to at least one virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0076] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0077] • providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0078] • determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amount(s) of the recyclable material(s);

[0079] • allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s)

[0080] - amount(s) of the recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s)

[0081] - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of the recyclable material(s);

[0082] • optionally providing the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport.

[0083] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to recyclable material(s) to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to recyclable material(s), the system comprising:

[0084] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account for balancing amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0085] • a material crediting system configured to allocate amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to at least one provided virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein; • a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0086] • a rule providing interface configured to provide at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0087] • a material debiting system configured to o determine via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); o allocate - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0088] • optionally a decentral network interface configured to provide the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport.

[0089] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a system for monitoring environmental impact of a chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to recyclable material(s), the system comprising:

[0090] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account for balancing amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0091] • a material crediting system configured to allocate amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to at least one provided virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0092] • a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0093] • a rule providing interface configured to provide at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0094] • a material debiting system configured to o determine via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); o allocate - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s); optionally a decentral network interface configured to provide the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport.

[0095] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to recyclable material(s) to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the method comprising:

[0096] • allocating amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to at least one virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0097] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0098] • providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0099] • determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s);

[0100] • allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s)

[0101] - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier;

[0102] • providing the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier for generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s).

[0103] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a method, in particular a computer-implemented method, for monitoring environmental impact of a chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to recyclable material(s), the method comprising:

[0104] • allocating amounts of recyclable material(s) to at least one virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0105] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0106] • providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0107] • determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of recyclable material(s);

[0108] • allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s)

[0109] - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier; • providing the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier for generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s).

[0110] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to recyclable material(s) to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the system comprising:

[0111] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account for balancing amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0112] • a material crediting system configured to allocate amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to at least one provided virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein;

[0113] • a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0114] • a rule providing interface configured to provide at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0115] • a material debiting system configured to o determine via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); o allocate - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier; o provide the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier for generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s).

[0116] Disclosed is in yet a further aspect a system for monitoring environmental impact of a chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to recyclable material(s), the method comprising:

[0117] • a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account for balancing amount(s) of recyclable material(s);

[0118] • a material crediting system configured to allocate amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to at least one provided virtual material account according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein; • a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier;

[0119] • a rule providing interface configured to provide at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s);

[0120] • a material debiting system configured to o determine via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); o allocate - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier; o provide the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier for generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s).

[0121] A chemical product associated with a chemical product passport generated according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein.

[0122] A decentral network node configured to provide amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to a chemical product identifier associated with a produced chemical product, wherein the amount of recyclable material is allocated to the chemical product identifier according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein.

[0123] In yet another aspect disclosed is a computer element, in particular a computer program product or a computer readable medium, with instructions, which when executed on one or more computing node(s) are configured to carry out the steps of any of the methods disclosed herein.

[0124] In yet another aspect the present disclosure relates to a computer element with instructions, which when executed on one or more computing node(s) is configured to carry out the steps of the method(s) of the present disclosure or configured to be carried out by the apparatus(es) of the present disclosure.

[0125] Any disclosure, embodiments and examples described herein relate to the methods, the apparatuses, systems, the decentral network nodes, the chemical products and computer elements lined out above and below. Advantageously, the benefits provided by any of the embodiments and examples equally apply to all other embodiments and examples.

[0126] Embodiments In the following, embodiments of the present disclosure will be outlined by ways of embodiments and / or examples. It is to be understood that the present disclosure is not limited to said embodiments and / or examples.

[0127] To enable or improve circularity of recyclable material, transparency on the amount of such recyclable material contained within end products, components thereof and / or contained within production waste generated during production of the end products and / or components thereof is crucial.

[0128] By determining amounts of recyclable material obtainable by performing a recycling process on end products, components thereof and / or production waste containing recyclable material and by balancing such amounts on virtual material accounts, the amounts of recyclable material contained within produced end-products and / or production waste generated during production of the end products is made transparent and accountable. Such virtual material accounts may hence balance amounts of recycled material that are either already available or that will become available in the future. Balancing of amounts of recyclable material on virtual material accounts may allow to efficiently assign a part of such amounts to produced chemical products in the form of recycled content. This allows to track recycled content in chemical processing and to to provide chemical products with positive environmental impact and hence also end-products produced therefrom with positive environmental impact. The virtual material accounting system allows to decouple the allocation of amounts or recyclable material from input material streams entering the chemical production while still allowing to tailor environmental impact of produced chemical product based on amounts of recyclable material provided by the virtual material accounting system. This way the environmental impact of the produced chemical products can be tailored to needs of customers or the owner of the recyclable material, such as a product producer producing product(s) based on the chemical product, irrespective of the environmental attribute(s) associated with input materials entering the production. The environmental property of the chemical products can be made transparent to customers further processing the chemical products by generating chemical product passports associated with the produced products and including data related to amounts of recyclable material allocated to the chemical products.

[0129] By using a decentral network to gather data related to end products and / or components thereof containing such recyclable material, data on the composition of end products, components thereof and / or production waste required to determine the amount of recyclable material per end product, group of end products, per component, group of components and / or per production waste batch may be shared in a secure and controlled manner, hence avoiding access to data not required to determine the amounts of recyclable material.

[0130] By using aggregation rules, the gathered data per end product and / or per component and / or per production waste batch can be efficiently aggregated, allowing to determine a total amount of recyclable material from the aggregated data. The use of aggregation rule(s) allows to filter the gathered data according to given criteria, hence ensuring that total amounts can be determined for defined recyclable material(s). This may allow to determine the total amount of recyclable material in an efficient way from data gathered via the decentral network.

[0131] By using allocation rules, the material owner of the recyclable material may control and / or manage allocation of amounts stored in such accounts as recycled content to chemical products, hence giving the material owner a lever to improve the environmental impact associated with chemical products and further products, such as discrete products, produced therefrom. The material owner may hence directly control the environmental impact of production inputs used by the material owner to produce products, such as end-products. This way, the material owner may ensure a target environmental impact of the produced products irrespective of environmental impact contribution(s) of production input(s) provided by upstream production stages. The allocation rules may allow selective allocation of amounts stored in such accounts to given chemical products, such as chemical products produced from input material(s) related to the recyclable material, chemical products produced by a given chemical product producer and / or chemical products produced for a given chemical product user. The use of virtual material accounts for balancing amounts of recyclable material allows to abstract the complexity of material loops and product ecosystems involving numerous participants while still allowing to assign recycled content to produced chemical products. This way, the amount of recycled content to be allocated to a produced chemical product can be determined in line with the material loop associated with the material owner.

[0132] By using a digital asset (e.g. chemical product passport) that is linked to (or assigned to, attached to, associated with) the produced chemical product the allocated amount of recyclable material from the virtual balancing account(s) to the chemical product can be made transparent in the form of recycled content. The digital asset may be passed to the chemical product consumer and may be used by the chemical product consumer to determine the recycled content of the produced products. Hence, the digital asset may be used by downstream participants of the material loop to make produced products more sustainable. Specifically for chemical networks that produce more than one chemical product from more than one input material via interconnected, connected and non-connected production chains, the use of a digital asset enables the allocation of the recycled amounts (e.g. the amounts of recyclable material allocated from the virtual balancing account(s) to the chemical product(s)) in line with the physical setup of the chemical production network. The use of digital assets enables the abstraction of the complexity of chemical production networks while still allowing to assign recycled content to chemical products. This way the recycled content of the produced chemical product(s) can be determined in line with the physical set up of the chemical production network.

[0133] By converting data gathered via a decentral network to indexable or accountable amounts of recyclable material, the data stored within the decentral network and forming a first semantic domain can be converted to a lingua franca (e.g. the indexable or accountable amounts of recyclable material) used between different participants of the material loop. This lingua franca may serve as an intersection of shared meaning between such participants. For instance, the material owner as well as the chemical product producer may know from the balance of the virtual material accounts how much recyclable material is available for allocation to produced chemical products. Moreover, the transformation of gathered data to accountable amounts of recyclable material can be easily controlled or audited by such participants, hence ensuring that such amounts are determined in a reliable and trustfully manner. In addition, the transformation of gathered data associated with physical products, such as end products, to accountable amounts of recyclable material allow to convert recyclable material contained in physical products, such as produced end products, into tradeable material.

[0134] By converting the indexable or accountable amounts of recycled material (e.g. the lingua franca) to a second semantic domain, such as chemical product passports associated with produced chemical products to which amounts of recyclable material stored in the virtual balancing accounts have been allocated, a conversion from a first semantic domain to a second semantic domain can be achieved via the indexable or accountable amounts of recycled materials stored in the virtual balancing accounts. Since the transformation of gathered data to the indexable amounts and back into data, such as chemical product passports, is easily controllable or auditable by participants of the material loop, the conversion between two semantic domains via the virtual material accounts may be performed in a reliable and trustful manner.

[0135] Various units, entities, nodes or other computing components may be described as “configured to” perform a task or tasks. Configured to shall recite structure meaning “having circuitry that” performs the task or tasks on operation. The units, circuits, entities, nodes or other computing components can be configured to perform the task even when the unit / circuit / component is not operating. The units, circuits, entities, nodes or other computing components that form the structure corresponding to “configured to” may include hardware circuits and / or memory storing program instructions executable to implement the operation. The units, circuits, entities, nodes or other computing components may be described as performing a task or tasks, for convenience in the description. Such descriptions shall be interpreted as including the phrase “configured to.”

[0136] In general, the methods, apparatuses, systems, computer elements, nodes or other computing components described herein may include memory, software components and hardware components. The memory can include volatile memory such as static or dynamic random-access memory and / or nonvolatile memory such as optical or magnetic disk storage, flash memory, programmable read-only memories, etc. The hardware components may include any combination of combinatoric logic circuitry, clocked storage devices such as flops, registers, latches, etc., finite state machines, memory such as static random-access memory or embedded dynamic random-access memory, custom designed circuitry, programmable logic arrays, etc. The recyclable material may be any material contained within an end product and obtained or obtainable by subjecting the end product or a part thereof to a recycling process. The recyclable material may be any material contained within production waste or production scrap and obtained or obtainable by subjecting the production waste or production scrap to a recycling process. The end product, the part thereof (e.g. the component) and / or the production waste may hence contain amounts of recyclable material that may be obtained by the recycling process. The amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to or stored in the virtual balancing account(s) may signify an amount of available recycled material and / or an amount of recycled material available in the future. Available recycled material may include recycled material obtained from a recycling process and not yet having been used as input material to a chemical production to produce new chemical products. Recycled material available in the future may include virtual recycled material not yet having been produced but which may be produced in the future by recycling end product(s) including recyclable material.

[0137] The production waste or production scrap may be generated during any production step of the production of the end product. The production waste or production scrap may be generated during production of chemical products or discrete products used to produce the end product. The production waste may include waste material which may no longer be used within any production step of the end product. The waste material may be collected and may be provided to a recycler for recycling. The production waste or production scrap may include waste cathode active material and / or waste anode active material. The production waste or production scrap may include waste electrode material. The waste electrode material may include recyclable material, such as recyclable metal(s) or metal compounds.

[0138] Data related to end products or components thereof may be associated with production waste generated during production of the end product and / or the components thereof. End product data and / or component data may include waste data associated with production waste generated during production of the end product and / or the component thereof.

[0139] The end product may be part of a product ecosystem. The product ecosystem may include chemical products. The product ecosystem may include production chains to produce an output product. The output product may be a chemical product, an intermediate chemical product, a component, a component assembly or an end-product. The product ecosystem may include processing chains to process used output products resulting from the use of produced output products. Processing chains may include recycling chains to recycle at least part of the used output product or a component thereof. Processing chains may include re-use chains to re-use the used output product. The product ecosystem may include various participants, such as raw input material producers, chemical product producers, chemical product users, end-product producers, end-product users, EOL product collectors and recyclers. The product ecosystem may allow to use recycled materials resulting from recycling of end-of-life end products to produce new products, such as chemical products. The product ecosystem may be associated with the production and / or re-use and / or recycling of physical products. The participants of the product ecosystem may be connected via a decentral network. The decentral network may include one or more decentral network node(s) configured to perform data transactions. The decentral network node(s) may be associated with participants of the product ecosystem. The data transactions may be based on a transaction protocol including authentication and / or authorization mechanism(s). Based on the authentication and / or authorization mechanism(s) a peer-to-peer network between decentral network node(s) of the decentral network may be established. The one or more authentication mechanism(s) may be associated with or linked to decentral identifier(s). The one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with decentral identifier(s) may be provided to decentral network node(s). The one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with decentral identifier(s) may be accessible by decentral network node(s). The decentral configuration allows for more efficient use of computing resources and strengthens control by each data owner of the decentral network.

[0140] Data providing network node(s) may be configured to provide access to data stored in a dedicated storage associated with the respective data providing network node(s). The data stored in the dedicated storage may include the data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material. The data stored in the dedicated storage may include the generated chemical product passport(s). The data providing network node(s) may be configured to provide access to such data upon request by data consuming network node(s). The access to such data may be under control of the data providing network node associated with the respective data. The data providing network node may be configured to authenticate the data consuming network node and / or to authorize access to such data by the data consuming network node.

[0141] Data consuming network node(s) may be configured to request access to data stored in a dedicated storage associated with the data providing network node(s). Data consuming network node(s) may be configured to determine access elements associated with produced product(s), for example by querying the decentral network, in particular decentral registries storing access elements. The data consuming network node may be associated with a participant of the product ecosystem.

[0142] The material owner may be any entity which owns the recyclable material. The material owner may be any entity that controls the recyclable material. The material owner may be any entity of a product ecosystem that controls flows of recyclable material within a material loop associated with the recyclable material. The material loop may refer to a circular system in which end product(s) or components thereof are recycled and the recycled material is obtained to produce new chemical products which in turn are used to produce new end products. The material loop may be a closed material loop where recycled material is used to produce the same end products the recycled material is obtained from via recycling. The material loop may be an open material loop where recycled material is used to produce different end products than the ones the recycled material is obtained from. The virtual material account may refer to a digital storage structure that stores amounts (e.g. amount data) of recyclable material. The virtual material account may hence be a digital inventory of recyclable material amounts. The virtual material account may contain a transaction table. The transaction table may contain entries associated with the allocation of amounts of recyclable material to the account and deduction of amounts of recyclable material from the account. The entries may be stored within the table based on accounting transactions received by the virtual balancing account or an accounting system including the virtual material account. The entries may contain data included in the accounting transaction, such as the amount to be credited or deducted, the recyclable material identifier, the transaction initiator, the transaction time and date or a combination thereof. The virtual material account may be associated with metadata identifying the account for balancing recyclable material amounts. The virtual material account may be associated with metadata identifying the recyclable material and the units of the amount allocated to the account. The virtual material account may be associated with metadata identifying the environmental attribute of the recyclable material the account is associated with. The virtual material account may hold or store amounts of recyclable material for transaction. Amounts of recyclable material may be allocated (or credited or added) to the account, hence increasing the balance of recyclable material stored in the account. Amounts of recyclable material may be deleted (or debited or withdrawn or deducted) from the account, for example by allocating amounts to chemical product identifier(s), hence reducing the balance of recyclable material stored in the account. The virtual material account may be associated with environmental attribute types such as recyclable. The virtual material account may by associated with recyclable material types such as metal. The virtual material account may be associated with an allocation scheme or rule(s) for attributing or allocating amounts or recyclable material to the account and / or for deleting amounts of recyclable material from the account. The virtual material account may be part of a material accounting system including multiple virtual material accounts. The material accounting system may include a material crediting system configured to convert data associated with end products or components thereof and gathered from a decentral network to amounts of recyclable materials and to credit (or allocated or add) such amounts to virtual balancing account(s) of the material accounting system. The material accounting system may include a material debiting system configured to debit (or delete or withdraw or deduct) amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual balancing account(s) by allocating such amounts to chemical product identifier(s) associated with produced chemical product(s).

[0143] Assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to recyclable material(s) to produced chemical product(s) may include the linking of a chemical product identifier associated with the respective produced chemical product with an amount of recyclable material stored in a virtual material account, such amount being related to or correspond to the environmental attribute. The chemical product identifier may be associated with the physical entity of the chemical product. This way the virtual identifier of a chemical product may be uniquely linked to the physical entity of the chemical product. Such linking may include a physical or virtual link of identifiers uniquely associated with the physical chemical product. For physical linking a tag or code may be physically connected to the chemical product, e.g. by printing a QR code on the packaging. For virtual linking different identifiers associated with the physical chemical product may be linked. For example, an order number, a batch number, LOT number or a combination thereof may be linked.

[0144] The environmental attribute may specify the environmental impact of the chemical product. The environmental attribute may be a data point or data set digitally specifying the environmental impact of the produced chemical product. The environmental attribute may relate to a recycled content of the produced chemical product. The environmental attribute may include a quantitative data point relating to the type of impact e.g., in view of the chemical products recycled content. The environmental attribute may specify recycled content. The term sustainable may refer to a material or product that has recycled content. For example, a sustainable end product may include recycled content. Similarly, a sustainable chemical product may include recycled content. The environmental attribute may include further environmental characteristics of the input(s) or the chemical product(s).

[0145] Environmental attribute(s) may refer to any property or characteristic related to the environmental impact. Such property may be a property or characteristic of input material(s) and / or a chemical product(s). The environmental attribute may indicate an environmental performance of an input material(s), the chemical production and / or chemical product(s). The environmental attribute may be derived from properties of the input material(s), the chemical production and / or the chemical product(s). The environmental attribute may be associated with the environmental impact of one or more material(s) at any stage during their lifecycle. The stages of the material or product lifecycle may include the stages of providing raw material, producing products, such as intermediate products or end products, using products, treating end-of-life products, recycling end-of-life products, disposing end-of-life products, reusing components from end-of- life products or any subset of stages. The environmental attribute may be tracked through any activity of one or more entities participating at any stage of the lifecycle of one or more material(s) or product(s). Environmental attributes associated with any activity of one or more entities participating at any stage of the lifecycle of one or more material(s) or product(s) may be accumulated or aggregated.

[0146] The environmental attribute may include one or more characteristic(s) that are attributable to environmental or sustainability impact of the input material(s), chemical product(s), intermediate product(s) and / or end product(s). The environmental attribute may include environmental, technical, recyclability or circularity characteristics(s) associated with the environmental impact of the input material(s), chemical product(s), intermediate product(s) and / or end product(s).

[0147] Environmental characteristic(s) may specify or quantify ecological criteria associated with the environmental impact of an input material, intermediate product, and / or a chemical product. Environmental characteristic(s) may be or may be produced or derived from measurements taken during the lifecycle of input material(s), chemical product(s), intermediate product(s) and / or end product(s). Environmental characteristic(s) may for example include impact categories such as carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions or global warming potential, primary energy demand, cumulative energy demand, biotic and abiotic resource consumption, air emissions, stratospheric ozone depletion potential, ozone formation, terrestrial and / or marine acidification, water consumption, water depletion, water availability, water pollution, noise pollution, freshwater and / or marine eutrophication potential, human carcinogenic and / or non-carcinogenic toxicity, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter formation, terrestrial, freshwater and / or marine ecotoxicity, ionizing radiation, agricultural and / or urban land occupation, land transformation, land use, indirect land use, deforestation, biodiversity, mineral resource consumption, and / or fossil resource consumption. Environmental characteristic(s) may be calculated from combinations of one of more environmental characteristics. Environmental characteristic(s) may for example include material or product characteristics related to the production of the material or product like recycled content, biobased content, renewable content, bio based, vegan, halal, kosher, palm oil-free, natural or the like.

[0148] Technical characteristic(s) may specify or quantify material or product performance at least indirectly associated with the environmental impact. Technical characteristic(s) may for example include product composition data, bill of materials, product specification data, product component data, product safety data, application property data, application instructions or product quality data. Technical characteristic(s) may be or may be produced from measurements taken during the lifecycle of one or more material(s) or product(s). Technical characteristics may be determined at any stage of the material or product lifecycle and may characterize the material or product performance for such stage or up to such stage. Technical characteristic(s) may for example include composition data, input in the production process, bill of materials, product or material specification data, product or material component data, product or material safety data, application property data, application instructions or product or material quality data. Technical characteristic(s) may for example include physical, chemical or further properties of the material or product.

[0149] Circularity characteristic(s) may specify or quantify the material or product life cycle characteristics associated with circular uses. Circularity characteristic(s) may be or may be produced from measurements taken during the lifecycle of one or more material(s) or product(s). Circularity characteristic(s) may be or may be produced from circular data recorded in one or more prior lifecycle(s) including reuse. Circularity characteristics may be determined at any stage of the material or product lifecycle and may characterize the reuse or recycling performance for such stage 10 or up to such stage. Circularity characteristic(s) may relate to technical, mechanical, chemical and / or biological recycling. Circularity characteristic(s) may for example include recycling data, reuse rate, recycling rate, recycling loops, reuse reused product performance, reused material or product quality or the like. Further circularity material characteristics may be derived by combining circularity characteristic(s). Recyclability characteristic(s) may specify or quantify the material or product life cycle characteristics associated with recycling uses. Recyclability characteristic(s) may include the composition of the material including specifically tailored constituents making the material suitable for recycling. Recyclability characteristic(s) may be or may be produced from measurements taken during the lifecycle of one or more materials or product(s). Recyclability characteristic(s) may be or may be produced from recycling data recorded in one or more prior lifecycle(s). Recyclability characteristics may be determined at any stage of the material or product lifecycle and may characterize the recycling performance for such stage or up to such stage. Recyclability characteristic(s) may for example include recycling data, recyclability data, efficiency of recycling or the like.

[0150] The term “input material” as used in the present disclosure may refer to any good which is bought from suppliers and brought to the respective production plant. The input material may include starting material used in the production process of the production plant to produce the product. An input material can be on any step along the value chain like the product described above. This means, the product of the one production plant can be the input material of the other production plant. Input material may include recycled material. The input material may comprise or be any input material entering the chemical production. The input material may comprise or be any input material provided at any entry point of the chemical production.

[0151] Chemical product produced from input material(s) may include any chemical product produced by the chemical network using the input material(s). The chemical product may be produced via one or more process steps. The process steps may involve chemical reactions and / or physical processes. The input material may be used in one or more of such production step(s). The chemical product may comprise or be any chemical product produced by the chemical production and provided at any exit point of the chemical production network. The chemical product may be an intermediate chemical product or a final chemical product.

[0152] Input material(s) related to the recyclable material may include input material(s) containing or consisting of chemical compounds that correspond to the recyclable material. Input material(s) related to the recyclable material may include input material(s) containing or consisting of chemical compounds similar to the recyclable material. Chemical compounds similar to the recyclable material may include chemical compounds having a similar chemical structure than the recyclable material and / or having at least a part of the chemical structure in common with the recyclable material. For instance, the recyclable material may correspond to recyclable metal A contained within a battery or a component thereof. Input material(s) related to the recyclable material may in this case correspond to metal A or metal compounds including such metal A.

[0153] The chemical product passport may refer to a data set having a defined semantic structure. The defined semantic structure may be obtained by applying a semantic model, such as an aspect model, to collected chemical product data associated with the respective chemical product. The chemical product passport may include the chemical product identifier, at least one decentral identifier, data associated with the produced chemical product(s) (e.g. chemical product data) and data related to the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier. The chemical product passport may include one or more authentication mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier(s), the chemical product data and the data related to the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier. The chemical product passport may relate to one or more authorization mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier(s), the chemical product data and the data related to the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier. The one or more authorization mechanisms may include authorization rules determining if access to the at least a part of the chemical product data and the data related to the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the chemical product identifier is granted. The chemical product passport may be associated with one or more digital representations of the chemical product data. The digital representations may be regarded as access element(s) providing access to the chemical product passport or parts thereof. The digital representation may include a decentral identifier and access data. The access data may include a locator or pointer, such as am url or uri, to a dedicated storage, such as a dedicated storage address, associated with the data owner of the chemical product passport. The pointer or locator may point directly to the dedicated storage. The pointer or locator may point to a data providing network node associated with the dedicated storage. The access element may include one or more authentication mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier(s) and the access data. The access element may be associated with one or more authentication mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier(s) and the access data. The access element may be provided to a decentral registry storing access elements. The decentral registry may be associated with a data providing network node. This may allow to control access to such registry and access to access element(s) stored in such registry via the data providing network node. The decentral registry may be associated with a participant of the product ecosystem. The decentral registry may be associated with the data owner of the chemical product passport. The decentral registry may be part of the decentral network but may not be associated with a particular participant of the production chain, e.g. may be regarded as infrastructure node of the decentral network.

[0154] The decentral identifier may comprise any unique identifier(s) uniquely associated with the producer of the chemical product, and the respective chemical product. The decentral identifier may include one or more Universally Unique Identifier(s) (UUID) or one or more Digital Identifier(s) (DID(s)). The decentral identifier may be issued by a central or decentral identity issuer. The decentral identifier may include authentication information. Via the decentral identifier and its unique association with the with the producer of the chemical product and the chemical product, access to the chemical product passport may be controlled by the producer of the chemical product. This contrasts with central authority schemes, where identifiers are provided by such central authority and access to data is controlled by such central authority. Decentral in this context refers to the usage of the identifier as controlled by the data owner. The data owner may be an entity having access to the chemical product passport and controlling access by data consuming services of the decentral network to the chemical product passport. The data owner may be the chemical product producer. Via the decentral identifier and its unique association with the data owner and chemical product passport access to the chemical product passport may be controlled by the data owner. The chemical product passport may be accessible for the data owner. The data owner may hence directly or indirectly own the chemical product passport. The chemical product passport may be stored in a data base of or associated with the data owner. The chemical product passport may be stored in a data base accessible by the data owner. The data owner may control access to the chemical product passport via the data providing service of the data owner. The data owner may control access to the chemical product passport . The chemical product passport may be associated with the data owner. The data owner may be the owner of the chemical product passport or the chemical product passport owner. The chemical product passport may be stored in a data base of or under control by the data owner.

[0155] In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the data related to the material owner includes a decentral participant identifier associated with the material owner, a material owner ID, a material owner name or a combination thereof. The data related to the owner may include an owner identifier uniquely identifying the material owner within the product ecosystem. The owner identifier may include a decentral participant identifier associated with the material owner and / or a unique material owner ID. Use of data related to the material owner (e.g. material owner data) may allow to selectively query the decentral network for data related to end products or components thereof including recyclable material owned by such material owner, hence reducing the amount of data that needs to be gathered from the decentral network. For instance, the query to the decentral network may be restricted to one or more end product producers producing machines including at least one battery, such as electric vehicles, and owing the batteries contained therein.

[0156] The material owner may be a participant of the decentral network. The participants of the decentral network may be associated with decentral participant identifiers. The decentral participant identifier may comprise any identifier uniquely associated with a participant of the decentral network and / or with a production site of the participant of the decentral network. The decentral participant identifier may include letters and / or numbers. The decentral participant identifier may include one or more Universally Unique Identifier(s) (UUID(s)) and / or one or more Decentralized Identifier(s) (DID(s)). The decentral participant identifier may be associated with or may include a verifiable claim or credential. The verifiable claim may be issued by a central or decentral identity issuer making one or more claims about a subject, such as a consumer entity being a trustworthy participant of the decentral network. For instance, the issuer may make a claim about a consumer (e.g. the entity operating data consuming network node(s)) the decentral participant identifier is associated with. The verifiable claim may include those claim(s) as well as proof instructions to prove that claim(s) have not been tampered with and were indeed issued by the claims issuer. The verifiable claim may also include duration information metadata that defines a period of time that the verifiable claim is valid for use or that defines a specific number of times that the verifiable claim is authorized for use. The verifiable claim may also include a DID of the claims issuer and / or the subject, such as a consumer entity. The verifiable claim may be signed by the claims issuer. The claims issuer may provide the verifiable claim to a claims holder, such as the consumer, for presentation to any relying party that relies upon the veracity of those claims, such as a decentral data provider. The signature of the verifiable claim may be validated with a public key associated with the claims issuer to determine that the customer entity is a trusted entity within the decentral network. The verifiable credential may be presented by the decentral data consuming network node and may be used by the decentral data providing network node to verify that the decentral participant associated with the decentral data consuming network node is a trusted entity within the decentral network prior to providing access to digital twin data, such as property data, hence ensuring that the digital twin can be exchanged in a secure and controlled manner within the decentral network.

[0157] In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material includes an end product type, a component type, end product identifiers, component identifier(s), waste identifier(s), key value pairs of data sets storing composition data or a combination thereof. The end product identifier(s), component identifier(s) and / or waste identifier(s) may include digital identifier(s) associated with the end product, component thereof and / or the production waste. Such digital identifiers may be associated with identifier elements physically connected to the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste. The composition data may include amount(s) of recyclable material contained within the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste. The component of the end product may include a discrete component or a chemical product. The production waste may be generated during production of the end product or the component thereof. The production waste may include waste material. The production waste may include waste electrode material. The electrode material may be generated during production of battery cells. The composition data may include an absolute amount of the recyclable material present within the end product, component thereof and / or the production waste. The composition data may include a relative amount of the recyclable material present within the end product, component thereof and / or the production waste. The composition data may be part of an end product passport, a component passport and / or a production waste passport. The composition data may be part of a digital twin of the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste. The digital twin may be digital representation of the physical entity of the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste. The digital twin may include end product data, component data and / or production waste data respectively. The data may be split one a plurality of data sets. Key value pair(s) of data set(s) storing composition data may include key value pairs of access elements associated with at least a part of the digital twin. The access elements may be stored in decentral registries associated with data providing network nodes. Use of data related to end products or components thereof allows to query the decentral network for end product data or component data associated with end products or components thereof, including recyclable material associated with the material owner. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be transferred via the decentral network and avoids the transfer of unnecessary data.

[0158] In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), gathering the end product data and / or component data includes determining decentral identifier(s) associated with the end products, components thereof and / or production waste based on the provided data related to the end products or the components thereof and gathering the end product data and / or component data from decentral data providing network node(s) associated with said end product data and / or component data using at least part of the determined decentral identifiers. The decentral identifier(s) may be determined by parsing the access element data received from data providing network node(s) in response to query data provided to the decentral network. The query data may include the material owner data and data related to the end product or the component thereof as previously described. The end product data may be gathered from decentral data providing network node(s) associated with the end product data, e.g. associated with dedicated storage storing the end product data. Such data providing network node(s) may be identified using the access data contained in the access elements received in response to the query data provided to the decentral network. Decentral identifier(s) associated with component(s) of end product(s) may be determined from relationship data set(s) specifying the relationship between the end product (parent decentral identifier) and component(s) (child decentral identifier(s)) used to produce the end product. The relationship data set(s) may be accessed via access data contained in an access element associated with the end product. By recursive determination of child relationship identifier(s) of respective parent identifier(s), the bill of material tree of an end product may be determined. This may allow to determine the decentral identifier(s) of all chemical products and discrete products used to produce an end product. Using said decentral identifier(s), respective composition data may be gathered from respective data providing network node(s). Such recursive determination may be needed in case the end product data gathered using the decentral identifier associated with the end product does not contain composition data including the amounts of recyclable material.

[0159] In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the end product data includes data associated with the material configuration of the end product. In an embodiment, the composition data includes data associated with the material configuration of the component and / or the production waste. The material configuration may relate or correspond to the chemical composition of the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste. The material configuration may data on chemical compounds present within the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste and associated amounts. The amounts may be absolute amounts or relative amounts. In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the at least one aggregation rule is configured to aggregate gathered data or amounts or recyclable material based on at least one predefined criteria. The at least one aggregation rule may specify the aggregation of gathered data. The at least one aggregation rule may specify the aggregation of amounts of recyclable material stored on virtual material account. The at least one aggregation rule may include instructions for aggregating gathered data or for aggregating amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material accounts. The at least one aggregation rule may be associated with material types to be aggregated. The at least one aggregation rule may be associated with material types and given recyclable material content. The at least one aggregation rule may be associated with properties of the end product or a component thereof. The at least one aggregation rule may be associated with properties of the recyclable material contained within the end product or a component thereof. The at least one aggregation rule may be associated with environmental attributes related to the end product or a component thereof.

[0160] In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the at least one transformation rule is configured to transform aggregated data or gathered data into an amount of recyclable material. The at least one transformation rule may specify the transformation of the gathered data or entries stored in virtual material account(s). The entries stored in virtual material account(s) may be associated with or related to stored amounts of recyclable material. The transformation rule may be associated with the total yield of the recycling process used to process end products or components thereof to obtain the recyclable material contained therein as recycled material. The total yield of the recycling process may be associated with or correspond to the yield of each recycling step of the recycling process. The transformation rule may be associated with gathered data including absolute amounts of recyclable material. The transformation rule may be associated with gathered data containing relative amounts of recyclable material. The transformation rule may be associated with a recyclable material type and / or a recyclable material identifier. This may allow to gather entries stored in the virtual material account based on such material type and / or material identifier.

[0161] In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), allocating the determined amount of recyclable material to at least one virtual material account includes selecting at least one virtual material account based on at least one allocation rule specifying the allocation of amounts of recyclable material(s) to virtual material account(s). The virtual material account(s) for balancing amounts of recyclable material and the at least one allocation rule may be associated at least in part with corresponding metadata. The virtual material account(s) for balancing amounts of recyclable material and the at least one allocation rule may be associated with corresponding metadata. The virtual material account(s) account for balancing amounts of recyclable material and the at least one allocation rule may be associated with partially corresponding metadata. The set of metadata associated with the virtual material account(s) account for balancing amounts of recyclable material and the at least one allocation rule may match in all data points of the meta data. The set of metadata associated with the virtual material account(s) and the at least one allocation rule may relate to at least one a recyclable material. The recyclable material may be identified by a recyclable material identifier. The set of metadata associated with the virtual material account(s) and the at least one allocation rule may relate to at least one a recyclable material and associated material owner. The material owner may be associated by a material owner identifier, a decentral participant identifier, a material owner name or a combination thereof. The set of metadata associated with the virtual material account(s) and the at least one allocation rule may relate to at least one a recyclable material type or class. The set of metadata associated with the virtual material account(s) and the at least one allocation rule may relate to at least one a recyclable material type and associated material owner.

[0162] The allocation rule may include instructions, in particular executable instructions, to determine one or more virtual material account(s) for allocation of the determined amount(s) of recyclable material(s). The allocation rule may include instructions to determine a virtual material account per determined amount of recyclable material. The allocation rule may be associated with metadata signifying the one or more account(s) for allocating the determined amount of recyclable material. The allocation rule may include instructions to match the metadata of the virtual material account(s) with the metadata of the recyclable material or with the metadata of the recyclable material and associated material owner as previously described. The allocation rule may include instructions to verify or validate the one or more virtual material account(s) for allocation of the determined amount(s) of recyclable material(s). The allocation rule may include instructions to determine, verify and / or validate the one or more virtual material account(s). For verification of the one or more virtual material account(s), the allocation rule may be associated with the metadata of the recyclable material and one or more virtual material account(s). For verification of the one or more virtual material account(s), the allocation rule may be associated with the metadata of the recyclable material, associated material owner metadata and one or more virtual material account(s). On verification, the one or more virtual material account(s) may be determined and compared to the one or more virtual material account(s) associated with the allocation rule. For validation of the one or more virtual material account(s), the allocation rule may be associated with the recyclable material metadata and one or virtual material more account(s). For validation of the one or more virtual material account(s), the allocation rule may be associated with the recyclable material metadata, associated material owner metadata and one or virtual material more account(s). On validation the metadata of the one or more virtual material account(s) may be checked to be validly accessible.

[0163] In an embodiment of the method for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the recyclable material is a recyclable metal obtainable by recycling batteries or parts thereof and / or by recycling production waste generated during the production of the battery or parts thereof. The recyclable material may be obtained in the form of a metal or metal compound, such as a metal salt, upon performing a recycling step on battery containing end products, on batteries, on parts thereof, such as electrodes, and / or on the production waste. The metal or metal compound may be obtained extraction of metal compounds from black mass produced by shredding of batteries, parts thereof and / or of production waste.

[0164] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), the chemical product(s) are produced from one or more input material(s) by a chemical production and at least a part of the input material(s) is / are related to the recyclable material associated with the material owner. The chemical product(s) may be produced at least in part from input material(s) related to the recyclable material associated with the material owner. For example, the chemical products may be produced at least in part from metal salts. Such metal salts may be related to recyclable metal owned by a material owner and balanced on one or more virtual material account(s) of a material accounting system. The chemical product may be produced from the input material(s) via one or more production steps.

[0165] The chemical product may be produced from the input material(s) by a chemical production network. The chemical production network may comprise one or more entry point(s) at which the input materials are provided to the chemical production network. The chemical production network may comprise one or more exit point(s) at which the produced chemical products are provided from the chemical production network. The chemical production network may include multiple chemical processes for producing one or more chemical product(s) from one or more input material(s). The chemical production network may include a complex production network producing multiple chemical products in multiple production or value chains. The one or more chemical product(s) may include chemical product(s) produced from input material(s) at least in part related to the recyclable material. A production or value chain may include one or more process(es) configured to produce one chemical product or chemical product class from one or more input material(s). The chemical production network may include connected, interconnected and / or non-connected production chains. The chemical production network may produce from input materials multiple intermediates and from intermediates one or more chemical products.

[0166] The chemical production network may include multiple production steps per production chain. The production steps included in the chemical production network may be defined by the physical system boundary of the chemical production network. The system boundary may be defined by location or control over production processes. The system boundary may be defined by the site of the chemical production network. The system boundary may be defined by production processes controlled by one entity or multiple entities jointly. The system boundary may be defined by production or value chain with staggered production processes to an end product, which may be controlled by multiple entities separately. The chemical production network may convert one or more input material(s) to one or more chemical product(s) via one or more processes. The processes may chemically, physically, mechanically and / or thermally convert one or more input material(s) to one or more chemical product(s).

[0167] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), the data associated with the produced chemical product includes input material data associated with input material(s) used to produce the chemical product(s). The input material data may include input material identifier(s) and / or amounts of input material(s) used to produce the chemical product(s). The input material data may include input material identifiers and input material amounts associated with the input materials used to produce the chemical product. Input material data may be provided per produced chemical product. Input material identifier(s) may include digital identifiers of input materials.

[0168] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), the virtual material account(s) include the at least one allocation rule. The at least one allocation rule may specify the allocation scheme associated with the virtual material account(s) for balancing amounts or recyclable material(s). The at least one allocation rule may specify the allocation of amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material account(s) to chemical product identifier(s) associated with the produced chemical product(s). The at least one allocation rule may depend on the chemical product identifier. The at least one allocation rule may include instructions for deducting amounts of recyclable material from at least one virtual material account upon assignment of such amounts to chemical product identifier(s). The at least one allocation rule may include instructions for attributing amounts of recyclable material from the virtual material account to chemical products or chemical product identifiers.

[0169] The at least one allocation rule may be associated with at least one chemical production network producing the chemical product(s). The at least one allocation rule may be associated with at least one chemical production network including one or more process steps converting input material(s) related to recyclable material to one or more intermediate(s) and / or one or more chemical product(s).

[0170] The at least one allocation rule may be associated with at least one chemical product type exiting the chemical production network. The at least one allocation rule may be associated with at least one chemical product type produced from one or more input material(s) at least in part related to the recyclable material.

[0171] The virtual material account(s) for balancing amounts of recyclable material and the at least one allocation rule may be associated at least in part with corresponding metadata as previously described. The set of metadata associated with such virtual material account(s) and the at least one allocation rule may relate to at least one chemical product type, at least one chemical production network, at least one production chain, at least one input material type or combinations thereof. The input material type may relate to the recyclable material. For instance, the input material type may relate to or correspond with the recyclable material type.

[0172] The allocation rule may include instructions to determine one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product (e.g. accessible for allocation amounts of recyclable material to the chemical product identifier). The at least one allocation rule may include instructions to determine one or more virtual material account(s) and / or the amounts of recyclable material accessible for the at least one chemical product. The allocation rule may be associated with metadata signifying the one or more virtual material account(s). For determination of the one or more virtual material account(s), the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product. For determination of the one or more virtual material account(s), the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product and the chemical product producer. For determination of the one or more virtual material account(s), the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product, the chemical product producer and the chemical product user the produced chemical product is supplied to. The allocation rule may include instructions to verify or validate the one or more virtual material account(s). The attribution rule may include instructions to determine, verify and / or validate the one or more virtual material account(s).

[0173] The allocation rule may include instructions to determine the input material(s) used to produce the chemical product. The allocation rule may include instructions to access a bill of material comprising input material data, chemical product data and process data. From the bill of material, the recyclable material or material types accessible for the at least one chemical product may be determined. From the recyclable material or material types, the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product may be determined.

[0174] The allocation rule may include instructions to match the metadata of the virtual material accounts with the chemical product type corresponding to the chemical product. The allocation rule may include instructions to match the metadata of the virtual material accounts with the chemical product type corresponding to the chemical product and the chemical product producer. The allocation rule may include instructions to match the metadata of the virtual material accounts with the chemical product type corresponding to the chemical product, the chemical product producer and the chemical product user. For determination of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product, the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product type, the chemical product type and the chemical product producer or the chemical product type, the chemical product producer and the chemical product user. The attribution rule may include instructions to match the metadata of the virtual material accounts with such data. Such metadata matching may be executed for any combination of metadata associated to the virtual material account(s) and allocation rules as lined out above. For verification of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product, the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product type and one or more virtual material account(s). For verification of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product, the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product type, the chemical product producer and one or more virtual material account(s). For verification of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product, the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product type, the chemical product producer, the chemical product user and one or more virtual material account(s). On verification the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product may be determined and compared to the one or more virtual material account(s) associated with the allocation rule.

[0175] For validation of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product, the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product type and one or more virtual material account(s). For validation of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product, the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product type, the chemical product producer and one or more virtual material account(s). For validation of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product, the allocation rule may be associated with the chemical product type, the chemical product producer, the chemical product user and one or more virtual material account(s). On validation the metadata and / or the balance of the one or more virtual material account(s) accessible for the at least one chemical product may be checked to be validly accessible.

[0176] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), determining virtual material account(s) includes

[0177] • determining potentially accessible virtual material account(s) based on input material(s) used to produce the chemical product(s),

[0178] • determining for each potentially accessible virtual material account the available amount of recyclable material stored within said virtual material account,

[0179] • selecting accessible virtual material account(s) based on the available amount of recyclable material and optionally an input material amount associated with the input material(s).

[0180] The potentially accessible virtual material account(s) may be determined using allocation rule(s) as previously described. For instance, an allocation rule may be used to determine input material(s) used to produce the chemical product from the bill of material data. The available amount of recyclable material may be determined by determining the respective account balance. The account balance may be determined by subtracting the sum of all amounts associated with crediting transactions (e.g. allocations of amounts of recyclable material to the virtual material account) by the sum of all amounts associated with debiting transactions (e.g. allocations of amounts of recyclable material from the virtual material account to chemical product identifier(s)). The accessible account(s) may be selected based on the available amount(s) stored in determined account(s). The accessible amount(s) may be selected based on the available amount(s) stored in the determined account(s) and input material amount(s) associated with input material(s). For instance, the input material amount(s) may determine the required amount of recyclable material to be deducted from the virtual materiel account. In this case, the virtual material account needs to have a balance being at least equal to the required amount of recyclable material to be deducted in order to be signified as “accessible”.

[0181] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), the chemical product passport(s) further include(s) data associated with the produced chemical product(s) and at least one decentral identifier associated with the data associated with the produced chemical product(s). The data associated with the produced chemical product may be collected before, during and / or after production of the chemical product(s). The data associated with the produced chemical product(s) may include data related to a property of the chemical product, data related to the use of the chemical product and / or production data. Data related to a property of the chemical product may include a measured chemical and / or physical property. Data related to a property of the chemical product may be determined from collected data and / or the use of the produced chemical product. The data may be collected before, during and / or after production of the chemical product. The collected data may be used to determine at least one physical and / or chemical property of the produced chemical product. For instance, the at least one physical and / or chemical property may be determined from sensor data as previously described. Data associated with the use of the chemical product may be collected via at least one identifier associated with the chemical product. The data may be collected during and / or after use of the chemical product. Collected data may include at least one measured physical and / or chemical property of the used chemical product. The measured physical and / or chemical property may include the chemical and / or physical properties described previously. The data may be collected with a suitable sensor configured to measure the chemical and / or physical property.

[0182] The chemical property may be a property of the chemical product that becomes evident during, or after, a chemical reaction. Hence, the chemical property may be any quality that can be established only by changing the chemical identity of the output product, the used output product or the component thereof. Examples of chemical properties include heat of combustion, enthalpy of formation, toxicity, chemical stability in a given environment, flammability, oxidation state(s), ability to corrode, combustibility, acidity and basicity, chemical composition, recyclate content used for producing or manufacturing the product, bio-based content used for producing or manufacturing the product, renewable content used for producing or manufacturing the product and / or pH value. The physical property may be any property of the chemical product that is measurable. Hence, the value of a physical property describes a state of the output product, the used output product or the component thereof. Examples of physical properties include absorption, brittleness, boiling point, capacitance, color, concentration, density, ductility, distribution, efficacy, elasticity, electric charge, electrical conductivity, electrical impedance, electric potential, flow rate, fluidity, hardness, heat capacity, inductance, intrinsic impedance, luminance, luminescence, luster, mass, melting point, opacity, permeability, permittivity, plasticity, pressure, radiance, resistivity, reflectivity, refractive index, solubility, specific heat, strength, stiffness, temperature, tension, thermal conductivity, thermal resistance, viscosity, volume and / or wave impedance. The measured at least one physical and / or chemical property may be obtained by sensors configured to measure such property. The sensor may be included in a measuring device. The sensor may correspond to the measuring device.

[0183] Data related to the use of the chemical product may include data related to further processing of the chemical product, for example by using the chemical product as reactant in further chemical reaction(s) and / or data related to the use of the chemical product, for example data related to the use of the chemical product in a treatment process and / or within a manufacturing process.

[0184] The data associated with the produced chemical product(s) may have a defined semantic structure. The defined semantic structure may be obtained by applying a semantic model to collected chemical product data. The semantic model may contain a semantic description including a data structure and / or properties, such as data types, possible or allowable ranges and / or values and / or physical unit(s) of parameters described by values. Use of a semantic model ensures that the chemical product passports contain data having a defined semantic structure, allowing to exchange chemical product passport data in a standardized and harmonized way.

[0185] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), generating the chemical product passport(s) includes

[0186] • providing data associated with the produced chemical product(s),

[0187] • providing at least one decentral identifier associated with the provided data associated with the produced chemical product(s),

[0188] • providing data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s),

[0189] • generating the chemical product passport(s) including the chemical product identifier, the decentral identifier(s), at least a part of the provided data associated with the produced chemical product(s), and the data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s).

[0190] The chemical product passport may hence correspond to a data set including the chemical product identifier, the decentral identifier(s), at least a part of the provided data associated with the produced chemical product(s), and the data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s). The chemical product identifier, the decentral identifier(s), at least a part of the provided data associated with the produced chemical product(s), and the data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) may correspond to the chemical product passport data. The chemical product passport data may have a defined semantic structure as previously described. The generated chemical product passport(s) may be stored in a dedicated data storage. The dedicated data storage may be associated with the data owner of the chemical product passports. The data owner may be the chemical product producer. The at least one decentral identifier may be provided by a decentral identifier generator configured to generate and provide decentral identifiers. The decentral identifier may include one or more UUID(s) or DID(s) as previously described. The decentral identifier may further be associated with the produced chemical product. The decentral identifier may be used by participants of the decentral network to access the chemical product passport(s) via the data providing network node associated with a dedicated storage storing such chemical product passport.

[0191] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), further including a step of generating at least one access element associated with the produced chemical product, the access element including at least one decentral identifier associated with the produced chemical product and access data associated with the chemical product passport. The decentral identifier may be associated with or correspond to the decentral identifier included in the chemical product passport. The decentral identifier may further be associated with data associated with the produced chemical product included in the chemical product passport. The access data may further be associated with data associated with the produced chemical product included in the chemical product passport. The access data may be provided to the decentral network. The access data may include a locator or pointer, such as am url or uri, to a dedicated storage, such as a dedicated storage address, associated with the data owner of the chemical product passport. The pointer or locator may point directly to the dedicated storage. The pointer or locator may point to a data providing network node associated with the dedicated storage. This may increase data security since the dedicated storage address is not published to further participants of the decentral network hence avoiding the risk of direct access of the dedicated storage without access control via the data providing network node. The access data may include one or more digital link(s) pointing to chemical product passport data, such as data associated with the produced chemical product and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s).

[0192] The access element may further include a representation of chemical product passport data. The access element may include one or more authentication mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier(s) and the access data. The access element may relate to one or more authorization mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier(s) and the chemical product passport data. The one or more authorization mechanisms may include authorization rules determining if access to the chemical product passport data is granted. The one or more authorization mechanisms may be associated with the data providing network node associated with the chemical product passport.

[0193] The access element may be provided to a decentral registry storing access elements. The decentral registry may be associated with a data providing network node. This may allow to control access to such registry and access to access element(s) stored in such registry via the data providing network node. The decentral registry may be associated with the data owner of the chemical product passport. The decentral registry may be part of the decentral network but may not be associated with a particular participant of the product ecosystem, e.g. may be regarded as infrastructure node of the decentral network. A query including query data may be sent via a data consuming network node to the decentral registry to determine whether the decentral registry stores access element(s) matching the query data. The query may be performed via data providing network nodes associated with decentral registries to ensure that only authenticated data consuming network node(s) can query the data contained in such decentral registries.

[0194] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), the data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) includes a recycled content associated with the produced chemical product. The recycled content may be determined from the amount(s) of recyclable material(s) allocated to the produced chemical product and the amount of produced chemical product. The recycled content may include a recycled per recyclable material allocated to the produced chemical product. The recycled content may include a total recycled content associated with the total amount of recyclable materials allocated to the chemical product. The recycled content may signify an environmental attribute of the produced chemical product. The recycled content may reduce the environmental impact of the produced chemical product. The recycled content may reduce the environmental impact associated with end products produced from such chemical products.

[0195] In an embodiment of the method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s), the data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) is determined from the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) and data associated with the produced chemical product(s). Data associated with the produced chemical product(s) may include the amounts of produced chemical product(s). Data associated with the produced chemical product(s) may be provided per chemical product and may be used to determine the data related to the allocated amount(s) per produced chemical product.

[0196] BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0197] In the following, the present disclosure is further described with reference to the enclosed figures. The same reference numbers in the drawings and this disclosure are intended to refer to the same or like elements, components, and / or parts.

[0198] FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a participant network of a product ecosystem including a material loop and being associated with a decentral peer-to-peer network for exchange of data associated with raw materials, chemical product(s), discrete product(s), end product(s) and recycled material(s). FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a participant network of a battery ecosystem including a material loop and being associated with a decentral peer-to-peer network for exchange of data associated with raw materials, chemical product(s), batteries, end product(s) and recycled material(s).

[0199] FIG. 3 illustrates schematically a battery with a battery identification element as end-of-life product.

[0200] FIG. 4 illustrates schematically a battery component with an identification element as part of an end-of-life product.

[0201] FIG. 5A illustrates an example of a recycling process for end-of-life batteries.

[0202] FIG. 5B illustrates the separation step described in the context of FIG. 4A.

[0203] FIG. 6 illustrates a decentral system for accessing data associated with materials and products of a product ecosystem.

[0204] FIG. 7A illustrates a first example of an accounting system for allocating amounts of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0205] FIG. 7B illustrates a second example of an accounting system for allocating amounts of recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0206] FIG. 8A illustrates a first example of virtual material accounts and associated metadata.

[0207] FIG. 8B illustrates a second examples of virtual material accounts and associated metadata.

[0208] FIG. 9 illustrates a flow chart of a first example method for allocating amounts of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0209] FIG. 10 illustrates a flow chart of a second example method for allocating amounts of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0210] FIG. 11 illustrates examples of component passport data structures based on decentral product identifiers. FIG. 12 illustrates a first example of a system for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute associated with production input(s) to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0211] FIG. 13 illustrates a second example of a system for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute associated with production input(s) to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0212] FIG. 14 illustrates an example of a chemical product passport generator in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0213] FIG. 15A illustrates a first example of a digital access element including a decentral identifier and access data.

[0214] FIG. 15B illustrates a second example of a digital access element including a decentral identifier and access data.

[0215] FIG. 16A illustrates a first example of a method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a recyclable material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0216] FIG. 16B illustrates a first example of a method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a recyclable material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0217] FIG. 17 illustrate examples of allocating amounts of a recyclable material stored in a virtual material account to chemical product identifiers by generating chemical product passport(s) for different batches of a chemical product.

[0218] FIG. 18A illustrates an example of an allocation rule set for allocating amounts of recyclable material to virtual material account(s).

[0219] FIG. 18B illustrates an example of an aggregation rule set for aggregating data gathered via a decentral network.

[0220] FIG. 18C illustrates an example of a transformation rule set for generating amounts of recyclable materials from gathered data or aggregated data. FIG. 18D illustrates an example of a dis-aggregation rule set for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product identifiers.

[0221] FIG. 18E illustrates dis-aggregation rule instructions for determining amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to be allocated to chemical product identifiers.

[0222] FIG. 19 illustrates an example of an accounting system for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a recyclable material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0223] FIG. 20A illustrates a first example of a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable material to produced chemical products via an accounting system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0224] FIG. 20B illustrates a second example of a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable material to produced chemical products via an accounting system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0225] FIG. 20C illustrates a first example of a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable metal to produced precursor cathode active materials or cathode active materials via an accounting system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0226] FIG. 20D illustrates a second example of a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable metal to produced precursor cathode active materials or cathode active materials within a material loop in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0227] FIG. 21 illustrates a graphical user interface showing balances of recyclable materials owned by a material owner and being stored in one or more virtual material accounts.

[0228] FIG. 22 illustrates a flow chart of an example method for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable material to produced chemical products in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[0229] DETAILED DESCRIPTION FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a participant network of a product ecosystem associated with a decentral peer-to-peer network for exchange of environmental footprint data associated with raw material(s), chemical product(s), discrete product(s), end product(s) and recycled material(s). The decentral participant network 130 may include one or more decentral network participants 102 to 114. The decentral network participants may be part of a product ecosystem including chemical products. The product ecosystem may include production chains to produce an end-product. The product ecosystem may include recycling chains to recycle at least part of an end-of-life product resulting from the use of the end product. The product ecosystem may include a raw material producer 104, a chemical product producer 102, a chemical product user 106, an end-product producer 108, an end-product user 110 an EOL product collector 112 and a recycler 114. The decentral participant network 130 may be a chemical supply chain. The product ecosystem may allow to use materials resulting from recycling of end-of-life products to produce new products, such as chemical products. The product ecosystem may be associated with the production and / or recycling of physical products. The product may be a chemical product, an intermediate chemical product, a component, a component assembly, an end product, an end-of-life product or a recycled material.

[0230] The participant(s) of the decentral participant network 130 may be associated with the production the product and / or recycling of the product. The decentral network participant 102 to 114 may refer to a manufacturer of physical products, such as raw material producer 104, chemical product producer 102, chemical product user 106, end-product producer 108, a user of physical goods, such as end-product user 110, and / or a participant of a recycling chain associated with the physical product, such as EOL product collector 112 and recycler 114. The decentral network participant may be associated with a decentral participant identifier. The decentral participant identifier may uniquely identify the decentral network participant within the decentral participant network 130.

[0231] The participant(s) of the decentral participant network 130 may be connected via material flows. The material flow may be a loop material flow 136. The loop material flow 136 may be a closed loop material flow. A closed loop material flow may refer to a material loop where recycled material is used to produce the same end products the recycled material is obtained from via recycling. The loop material flow 136 may be an open loop material flow. An open loop material flow may refer to a material loop where recycled material is used to produce different end products than the one the recycled material is obtained from. The material flow may be a linear material flow (e.g. not including recycling). The material flow 136, 138 may correspond to the flow of product from one participant of the decentral participant network 130 to the downstream participant of the decentral participant network 130. The material flow 136, 138 may refer to a continuous or a discontinuous flow of product. The flow of product may include any means of transportation suitable to transport the product from a participant to the downstream participant. The means of transportation may include pipes, containers, barrels, packages. The material flow 138 may be associated with raw materials used to produce the chemical product, such as virgin raw materials. The raw materials may be provided to chemical product producer 102 for producing chemical product(s) and / or intermediate chemical product(s) (not shown). The loop material flow 136 may be associated with chemical product(s). The chemical product(s) may be provided from chemical product producer 102 to chemical product user 106 for producing discrete product(s). In contrast to chemical production, the discrete products being produced are distinct units sold as individual products. The loop material flow 136 may be associated with recycled material. The recycled material may be provided from recycler 114 to chemical product producer 102 for the production of chemical product(s).

[0232] At least part of the participants of the decentral participant network 130 may be associated with decentral participant network nodes 116 to 128. The decentral participant nodes 116 to 128 may be under control of the respective decentral participant associated with the respective decentral participant node. The decentral participant nodes 116 to 128 may form decentral network 134. The decentral network 134 may be a peer-to-peer communication network. The decentral network 134 may be configured to perform data transactions 132. The data transactions 132 may be based on a transaction protocol including authentication and / or authorization mechanism(s). Based on the authentication and / or authorization mechanism(s) a peer-to-peer communication between decentral network nodes 116 to 128 associated with decentral network participants 102 to 114 may be established. The one or more authentication mechanism(s) may be associated with or linked to a decentral identifier as described in the context of FIG. 6. The one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with the decentral identifier may be accessible by the decentral participant nodes as described in the context of FIG. 6. The decentral configuration allows for more efficient use of computing resources and strengthens control by the data owners of the decentral network.

[0233] Data transactions between decentral network participant nodes may be based on a decentral identifier associated with respective product data to be accessed, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6. The decentral identifier may be uniquely associated with the physical entity of the product and associated product data. The decentral identifier may uniquely identify the respective product within the decentral network. The decentral identifier may be associated with further decentral identifier(s), such as decentral identifier(s) of product(s) used to produce the product. This may allow to track the product(s) used to produce a product, such as an end-product. The decentral identifier may be included in a digital access element associated with the product, for example as described in the context of FIG. 15A and FIG. 15B.

[0234] The data flow 132 (e.g. transactions, depicted by dashed lines) between decentral network participant nodes may be directly or indirectly associated with the material flow 136, 138 (depicted by bold solid lines) between the decentral network participants. For instance, data flow 132 may be directly associated with material flow 136, 138 if data associated with an input material provided from the raw material producer 104 to the chemical product producer 102 is accessed by decentral participant node 118 associated with said chemical product producer 102. For instance, data flow 132 may be indirectly associated with material flow 136, 138 if data associated with a chemical product produced by chemical product producer 102 is accessed by decentral participant node 128 associated with recycler 114.

[0235] The decentral participant nodes 116 to 128 may be decentral computing nodes. The decentral computing node may be any device or system that includes at least one physical and tangible processor, and a physical and tangible memory capable of having thereon computer-executable instructions that are executed by a processor. The memory may take any form and depends on the nature and form of the computing node.

[0236] At least part of the decentral participant nodes 116 to 128 may be decentral data providing network nodes. At least part of the participant nodes 116 to 128 may be decentral data consuming network nodes. A participant of the decentral participant network 130 may be associated with a decentral data providing network node and / or a decentral data consuming network node depending on whether data is provided to downstream participants and / or consumed from upstream participants. For instance, end-product producer 108 may be associated with a decentral data providing network node configured to provide product data to a downstream participant (e.g. recycler 114) for example as described in the context of FIG. 6. In addition to or alternatively, end-product producer 108 may be associated with a decentral data consuming network node configured to access data associated with a discrete product produced by an upstream participant (e.g. chemical product user 106).

[0237] The decentral network 134 may include further decentral network nodes. The further decentral network nodes may be decentral infrastructure service nodes (not shown in FIG. 1). The decentral infrastructure service nodes may not be associated with a participant of the product ecosystem. The decentral infrastructure service nodes may provide services for decentral participant nodes 116 to 128, such as verifying the identity of the decentral network participant nodes 116 to 128 prior to performing a data exchange. The decentral network participant nodes 116 to 128 may be associated with or include certificate(s), such as X.509 certificate(s). The certificate(s) may be associated with decentral infrastructure service node(s) including e.g. a certificate issuing service and / or a dynamic provisioning service providing dynamic attribute tokens (e.g. OAuth Access Tokens). This way the decentral network participant nodes 116 to 124 possess a unique identifier embedded in a X.509 certificate that identifies the respective decentral network participant node 116 to 128. The information required to verify the certificate may be provided via an authentication registry associated with the certificate issuing service and / or a dynamic provisioning service. For instance, in the IDSA Reference Architecture Model, Version 3.0 of April 2019, a decentral data providing network node associated with a data owner, a Certification Authority (CA), a Dynamic Attribute Provisioning Service (DAPS) and a decentral data consuming network node associated with a data consumer are used to verify the identity prior to performing a data exchange (not shown). FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a participant network of a battery ecosystem including a material loop and being associated with a decentral peer-to-peer network for exchange of data associated with raw materials, chemical product(s), batteries, end product(s) and recycled material(s). The decentral participant network 216 may include one or more decentral network participants 108, 112 and 202 to 212. The battery ecosystem may include production chains to produce an end-product, such as a machine containing a battery. The battery ecosystem may include recycling chains to recycle at least part of an end-of-life battery resulting from the use of the end product. The battery ecosystem may include a miner 202, a Refiner 204, a precursor cathode active material (PCAM) and cathode active material (CAM) producer 206, a Battery producer 208, an end-product producer 108, an EOL product collector 112, a black mass producer 210 and a metal extractor 212. The battery ecosystem may allow to use materials, such as metals and metal salts, resulting from recycling of end-of-life batteries or components thereof to produce new products, such as PCAM and CAM. The product ecosystem may be associated with the production and / or recycling of batteries.

[0238] The participant(s) of the decentral participant network 216 may be associated with the production the product and / or recycling of the batteries. The decentral network participant may be a manufacturer of physical products, such as miner 202, refiner 204, PCAM & CAM producer 206 chemical product producer 102, chemical product user 106, end-product producer 108 and / or a participant of a recycling chain associated with the end of life battery, such as EOL product collector 112, black mass producer 210 and metal extractor 212. For instance, the metal extractor 212 and the PCAM & CAM producer 206 may be a single entity performing recycling operations to obtain recycled material, such as recycled metals and / or metal salts, and producing new chemical product(s), such as PCAM and / or CAM using the recycled metal and / or metal salts. The decentral network participant may be associated with a decentral participant identifier. The decentral participant identifier may uniquely identify the decentral network participant within the decentral participant network 216.

[0239] The participant(s) of the decentral participant network 216 may be connected via material flows as described in the context of FIG. 1 . The raw materials, such as metals, may be provided to refiner 204 for refinement. The refined metals may be provided to PCAM & CAM producer 206 for the production of cathode active material. The CAM may be used, for example by battery producer 208 to produce battery cells. The battery cells may be used to produce batteries. The batteries may be provided to end-product producer 108 to produce battery containing end products, such as electric vehicles. Scrape from battery production may be provided to black mass producer 210.

[0240] At least part of the participants of the decentral participant network 216 may be associated with decentral participant network nodes 218 to 232 as described in the context of FIG. 1. The decentral participant nodes 218 to 232 may form decentral network 134. The decentral network 134 may be a peer-to-peer communication network as described in the context of FIG. 1 . The decentral configuration allows for more efficient use of computing resources and strengthens control by the data owners of the decentral network. Data transactions between decentral network participant nodes may be based on a decentral identifier associated with respective data to be accessed, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6. The decentral identifier may be uniquely associated with the physical entity of the chemical or discrete product and associated data. The decentral identifier may uniquely identify the respective chemical or discrete product within the decentral network. The decentral identifier may be associated with further decentral identifier(s), such as decentral identifier(s) of production input(s) used to produce the chemical or discrete product as described in the context of FIG. 1 . The decentral identifier may be included in a digital access element associated with the chemical or discrete product, for example as described in the context of FIG. 15A and FIG. 15B.

[0241] The data flow 132 (e.g. transactions, depicted by dashed lines) between decentral network participant nodes may be directly or indirectly associated with the material flow 136, 138 (depicted by bold solid lines) between the decentral network participants as described in the context of FIG. 1 .

[0242] The decentral participant nodes 218 to 232 may be decentral computing nodes as described in the context of FIG. 1.

[0243] At least part of the decentral participant nodes 218 to 232 may be decentral data providing network nodes. At least part of the participant nodes 116 to 128 may be decentral data consuming network nodes. A participant of the decentral participant network 130 may be associated with a decentral data providing network node and / or a decentral data consuming network node depending on whether data is provided to downstream participants and / or consumed from upstream participants (see also FIG. 1).

[0244] The decentral network 134 may include further decentral network nodes as described in the context of FIG. 1.

[0245] FIG. 3 illustrates schematically a battery 302 with an identification element 304, 306. The battery may be used within a machine, such as an automotive. The battery may be used until reaching its end of life. End-of-life batteries may have a state of health (SoH) which is below predefined threshold values. The state-of-health (SoH) may be a measurement that indicates the level of degradation and remaining capacity of the battery. It may be defined as the ratio of the maximum battery charge to its rated capacity. SoH may be determined with the BMS of the battery. SoH may be determined using Battery Capacity Determination (BCD). The battery is an arbitrary example of an end-of-life product. Any plastics packaging, electronic device or other end-of-life product is equivalently usable and the mere explanation by the battery example shall not limit the scope of the underlying concepts lined out here.

[0246] The battery 302 may comprise a battery management system 308 and a plurality of battery cells 310 arranged inside a battery housing 312. The battery cells 310 may be arranged in battery packs or modules comprising multiple battery cells 310. The battery cell 310 may comprise an electrolyte 314, an anode element 316, a cathode element 318, and a separator 320. Depending on the application, different components of batteries may comprise different material compositions. For instance, the battery may be a lithium-ion battery. The cathode elements 318 may include cathode active material (CAM) coated on a collector foil such as aluminum or copper foil. Cathode active materials may contain layered oxides (IJMO2 with M=Co, Ni, Mn, Al such as LCO (LiCoO2), NCM (LiNixMnyCozO2), NCA (LiNixCoyAlzO2)), spinels (UM2O4 with M=Mn, Ni such as LMO (LiMnO4)) or phosphates (IJMPO4 with M= Fe, Mn, Co, Ni such as LiFePO4). The CAM may further contain binders, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and carbon as conducting agents.

[0247] The anode element 316 may include anode active material coated on collector foil such as aluminum or copper foil. The anode active material may contain artificial graphite, natural graphite or compositions thereof. Further the anode active material may include silicon, SiO2, lithium titanate (LTO) or combinations thereof. Further the anode active material may contain binders such as styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), polymeric thickener like carboxylmethyl cellulose (CMC) and carbon as conducting agent.

[0248] The electrolyte 314 may comprise salts, solvents such as carbonates, esters or ethers to provide conductivity and additives e. g. to support the formation of SEI-layers such as alkyl sulfites and sulfones e. g. ethene sulfite and propene sulfone. Mixtures of cyclic carbonates such as ethylene carbonate (EC) or propylene carbonate (PC) with open chained carbonates such as dimethyl carbonate (DMC) may be included. As conducting salt lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPFs), lithium bis(trifluormethyl)sulfonylimid (LiTFSI) and its derivates (e.g., lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl) imide (LiFSI)) or lithium [tris(pentafluorethyl)- trifluorphosphate] (LiFAP), lithium 4,5-dicyano-2-trifluoromethyl-imidazolide (LiTDI), lithium bis(oxalate)borate (LiBOB)), ethyl methyl carbonate (EMC), and / or diethyl carbonate (DEC) may be used.

[0249] Separators 320 may divide the space between the electrodes and are permeable for ions. Separator types include microporous membranes, ceramic-coated separators, non-woven mats, solid inorganic or polymeric electrolytes. Polyolefin-based membranes coated e.g., with PVDF or ceramics may be used.

[0250] The identification element 304, 306 may be physically associated with the battery 302. The identification element 304, 306 may be physically attached to the battery housing 312 or be part of the battery management system 308. The identification element 304, 306 may be arranged inside or outside the battery housing 312. The identification element 304, 306 may be a passive identification element 304, 306. The passive element 304, 306may be arranged on the outer surface of the battery housing 312. The passive element 304, 306 may be based on markers embedded into the material. The passive element 304, 306 may include a printed code such as a bar code or a QR code. The identification element 304, 306 may be an active identification element 304, 306. The active element 304, 306 may be a transmitter or transceiver tag, such as an RFID tag enabling communication through e.g. NFC, Bluetooth, Zigbee or other suitable near- to mid-range communication protocols. The identification element 304, 306 may be part of the battery management system 308. The identification element 304, 306 may be associated with a battery identifier. The battery identifier may be stored within battery management system 308. The battery identifier may be unique for the end-of- life battery. The battery identifier may be further associated with data related to the battery (e.g. battery data). Such data may include any data collected during the production or lifetime of the battery 302. For instance, such data may include material data such as material configuration data collected during production of the battery or monitoring data collected during use of the battery associated with the decentral battery identifier.

[0251] The battery identifier may be associated with or include at least one decentral battery identifier. The decentral battery identifier may comprise any unique identifier uniquely associated with the data related to the battery and the identified battery 302. The decentral battery identifier may further be associated with the data owner of the data related to the battery. The decentral battery identifier may include at least one Universally Unique I Dentifier (UulD) and / or at least one Digital I Dentifier (DID). The decentral battery identifier may be issued by a central or decentral identity issuer. The decentral battery identifier may include authentication information for authentication of the data relating to the identified battery. Via the decentral battery identifier and its unique association with the battery 302, access to the battery data may be controlled by the data owner of the battery data. This contrasts with central authority schemes, where identifiers are provided by central authority and access to data is controlled by such central authority. Decentral in this context refers to the usage of the identifier as controlled by any data owner. The identification element 304, 306 may be configured to provide the decentral battery identifier for accessing data relating to the identified battery.

[0252] The data owner may comprise any entity generating data, particularly data relating to the battery identified. The generating node may be coupled to the entity owning physical products from or for which data, particularly, the data relating to the battery identified, is generated. The data, particularly the data relating to the battery identified, may be generated by a third-party entity on behalf of the entity owning physical products from or for which data is generated. The data owner may be the producer of the material and / or component(s) contained in the battery, the producer of the battery or the end product producer using the battery to produce end products containing the battery. Via the decentral identifier and its unique association with the data owner and data relating to the product identified, access to the respective data may be controlled by the data owner. The data relating to the product identified may be accessible for the data owner. The data owner may hence directly or indirectly own or control the data relating to the product identified. The data relating to the product identified may be stored in a storage environment of or associated with the data owner. The data relating to the product identified may be stored in a storage environment accessible by the data owner. The data owner may control access to the data relating to the product identified via the data providing service of the data owner. The data owner may control access to the data relating to the product identified. The data relating to the product identified may be associated with the data owner. The data owner may be the owner or controller of the data relating to the product identified or the data relating to the product identified owner. The data relating to the product identified may be stored in a storage environment of or under control by the data owner. In this sense, the data owner may relate to the entity having access to the data relating to the product identified or parts thereof and controlling access by decentral data providing network nodes of the decentral computing environment to the data relating to the product identified or parts thereof.

[0253] In particular, the decentral identifier may relate to material data specifying the material composition of one or more component(s) of the product. The decentral product identifier may be associated with the battery 302 and the material data may specify the material composition of one or more component(s) of the battery 302.

[0254] The decentral battery identifier may include one or more identifier(s) used in the decentral computing environment and allowing for data exchange via the decentral computing environment, such as the peer- to-peer communication channel. Data exchange may include discovery of the decentral battery identifier for participant nodes of the decentral computing environment, authentication of participant nodes of the decentral computing environment and / or authorization of data transfers via a peer-to-peer communication between participant nodes of the decentral computing environment.

[0255] FIG. 4 illustrates schematically a battery component with an identification element . As mentioned in the context of FIG. 3, the choice of a battery component as an example of a component of an end-of-life product is arbitrary and shall not be construed limiting.

[0256] The component may include one or more sub-components of the product. In this example, the component may include the housing 312 of the battery. The sub-component may include the battery management system 308, the battery module or pack with a plurality of battery cells 310, the battery cell 310 or combinations of such sub-components. The component identification element 304, 306 may be associated with the component 310. The identification element 304, 306 may be physically attached to the component 310. The identification element 304, 306 may be arranged inside or outside the product component 310. The identification element 304, 306 may be a passive or an active identification element 304, 306 as described in the context of FIG. 3. The identification element 304, 306 may be associated with a decentral component identifier. The decentral battery identifier may include or relate to at least one decentral component identifier associated with the identified product component 310 as described in the context of FIG. 1 . In particular, the identification element 304, 306 may be configured to provide the decentral component identifier for accessing data related to the identified product component, such as component data.

[0257] FIG. 5A illustrates an example of a recycling process for end-of-life (EOL) batteries. This is an arbitrary choice and shall not be considered limiting. Batteries may comprise different parts of material as described in the context of FIG. 3 and FIG. 4. The recycling process may comprise different steps and may have different designs. The first step may be the dismantling step 502. This step may comprise discharging the EOL battery 504. This step may comprise disassembly of the EOL battery or the discharged EOL battery 506 into separate components. Disassembly may include separating the housing, the frame, cables and the BMS from battery modules contained within the EOL battery. The components resulting from the disassembly 506 may be fed into subsequent recycling steps. For instance, the modules may be fed into a mechanical treatment step 514 or a pyrometallurgy treatment step 508.

[0258] The pyrometallurgy treatment step 508 may include smelting 510. Smelting 510 may include feeding the modules into a heating furnace. The heating furnace comprise different heating zones to avoid explosion of the fed modules. For instance, the heating furnace may comprise a preheating zone with a temperature of lower than 300 °C to ensure complete evaporation of the electrolyte without explosion, a pyrolysis zone with a temperature of above 700 °C to evaporate plastic components of the modules, and a smelting reduction zone where the remaining material is smelted into alloys of Cu, Co, Ni, Mn and Fe, along with Li, Al, Si, Ca, Mn and some Fe slag. This method is usually only used to recover Cu, Co, Ni, and small amounts of Mn and Fe. The pyrometallurgy treatment step 508 may include extraction 512 to extract the alloy from the slag. The extracted alloy may be used in a hydrometallurgy treatment step 520 as described later on. Smelting 510 may include selective pyrolysis in an arc furnace to obtain alloy and Li containing slag. The Li slag may be extracted by hydrometallurgy 520 as described later on (not shown). The selective pyrolysis may be used to also recycle components of the electrolyte, such as Li and Fe, which may greatly improve the recovery efficiency.

[0259] The mechanical treatment step 514 may include shredding 516. The mechanical treatment step may include separation 516 of the shredded material. Separation may result in metals, such as Al, Cu and Fe as well as black mass material. The black mass material may comprise various metals, such as Co, Ni, Mn, Li, Mg, and carbon. Depending on the conditions used during separation, the metals may have an oxidation state of > 2 or < 2. Electrolyte residues may be removed by drying or pyrolysis before performing further separation steps. The separation step 518may include the steps described in the context of FIG. 5B.

[0260] The hydrometallurgy treatment step 520 may comprise a leaching step 522. The leaching step may comprise a separation step of leached metal ion solutions. Hence, separation may result in metal ion solutions comprising a single metal ion, a counter ion and a solvent. This allows to separate the metals from each other, hence facilitating metal precursor production 524. The leaching step may be performed with the alloy obtained from pyrometallurgy 508 or with the black mass material resulting from mechanical treatment 518. If the leaching step is performed with the alloy, leaching may result in extraction of Cu, Fe, Co and Mn. If the leaching step is performed with black mass material, leaching may result in the extraction of Cu, Fe, Co, Mn, Li and Ni. The leaching step may be performed using inorganic acids, such as hydrochloric acid (HCI), sulfuric acid (H2SO4), nitric acid (HNO3), and phosphoric acid (H3PO4). After leaching, the leached metals may be recovered from the solution by a series of processes in sequence, such as selective precipitation, solvent extraction, ion exchange, or electrolytic deposition.

[0261] The recycled metal salts recovered after leaching may be used to produce precursors cathode active material (PCAM) for production of cathode active material (see 524). The precursors may be synthesized using a carbonate or a hydroxide process route. For instance, the precursors may be synthesized from respective metal salt solutions by mixing said metal salt solutions and precipitating the PCAM using a pH adjuster and a complexing agent. The PCAM may be washed and dried. The cathode active material may be prepared from the PCAM by mixing the precursor with lithium salts, calcination of the mixture, grounding and classification according to size.

[0262] FIG. 5B illustrates the separation step 518 described in the context of FIG. 5A. The material obtained after shredding (see step 516 of FIG. 5A) may be dried 526 and mixed 528. Afterwards, classification 530 may be performed to separate current-conducting foils, separator parts and metals from cables from the material containing transition metals. Separated materials may include Al, Fe and Cu. Separation 530 may be followed by a further crushing step 532 and a sieving step 534. Afterwards, a second classification step 536 may be performed. The materials may be classified or sorted by their physical properties such as particle size, form, density, and electric and magnetic properties. Pyrolysis 538 at 700°C may be performed to remove any remaining electrolyte and fluorine-containing components which are potentially hazardous to health. After pyrolysis, black mass material 540 may be obtained.

[0263] FIG. 6 illustrates a decentral system for accessing data associated with materials and products of a product ecosystem. The product may be a battery. The product may be a chemical material, such as PCAM or CAM. The product may be a battery component, such as a battery cell. The product may be a production waste, such as production scrap generated during the production of battery cell(s). The decentral system may be a decentral peer-to-peer network 134 as described in the context of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2.

[0264] The product may be associated with data related to the product (e.g. product data). The data related to the product may represent at least a part of a digital twin of the physical entity of the product. The digital twin may be a digital representation of the physical entity. The digital representation may correspond to a defined semantic description of said physical entity. The digital twin may hence represent a digital version of said physical entity. Once created, the digital twin may be used to represent the physical entity of the product in a digital representation of a real-world system. The digital twin may contain one or more data set(s) (also called assets or aspects herein after). The data set(s) may represent a part of the digital twin. The data set(s) may be associated with a decentral data set identifier to allow identification of the respective data set within the digital twin. The decentral system may be used to gather data associated with products containing recyclable materials as described in the context of FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. The decentral system may be used to determine decentral identifier(s) associated with the raw material(s), the produced intermediate chemical product(s), the produced chemical product(s) and the produced discrete product(s). Discrete product(s) may include components, component assemblies and end products. The chemical product(s) and the discrete product(s) may be produced from one or more production input(s). The production input(s) may be received from the respective upstream participant. The raw material(s), produced intermediate chemical product(s), produced chemical product(s) and produced discrete product(s) be associated with an access element including a decentral identifier and access data allowing access to respective data related to the raw material, intermediate chemical product, chemical product or discrete product, respectively. The access element may be generated as described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13. Examples of such access elements are illustrated in FIG. 15A and FIG. 15B. The access element may further include or relate to authentication and / or authorization information linked to the decentral identifier. The access element may be provided to a decentral registry. The decentral registry may store access elements and may be queried using query data to identify desired data related to the respective raw material, intermediate chemical product, chemical product or discrete product.

[0265] The participants of the decentral network may be associated with decentral participant identifiers. Each participant of the decentral network may be associated with one or more decentral participant identifier(s). The decentral participant identifier may comprise any identifier uniquely associated with a participant of the decentral network and / or with a production site of the participant of the decentral network. The decentral participant identifier may include letters and / or numbers. The decentral participant identifier may include one or more Universally Unique Identifier(s) (UUID(s)) and / or one or more Decentralized Identifier(s) (DID(s)). The decentral participant identifier may be associated with or may include a verifiable claim or credential. The verifiable claim may be issued by a central or decentral identity issuer making one or more claims about a subject, such as an entity being a trustworthy participant of the decentral network. For instance, the issuer may make a claim about a consumer (e.g. the entity operating data consuming network node(s)) or a provider (e.g. the entity operating data providing network node(s)) the decentral participant identifier is associated with. The verifiable claim may include those claim(s) as well as proof instructions to prove that claim(s) have not been tampered with and were indeed issued by the claims issuer. The verifiable claim may also include duration information metadata that defines a period of time that the verifiable claim is valid for use or that defines a specific number of times that the verifiable claim is authorized for use. The verifiable claim may also include a DID of the claims issuer and / or the subject, such as an entity. The verifiable claim may be signed by the claims issuer. The claims issuer may provide the verifiable claim to a claims holder, such as the entity, for presentation to any relying party that relies upon the veracity of those claims, such as a decentral data provider. The signature of the verifiable claim may be validated with a public key associated with the claims issuer to determine that the respective entity is a trusted entity within the decentral network. The verifiable credential may be presented by a decentral data consuming network node and may be used by a decentral data providing network node to verify that the decentral participant associated with the decentral data consuming network node is a trusted entity within the decentral network prior to providing access to data, such as product data, hence ensuring that the product data can be exchanged in a secure and controlled manner within the decentral network.

[0266] The decentral system may include a data consumer and a data provider. The data consumer and the data provider may be connected via a decentral network, such as a decentral peer-to-peer network (see for example FIG. 1 and FIG. 2). The data provider may provide data, such as product data, associated with a product to data consumer. The data consumer may request data, such as the product data, from the data provider. The data provider may correspond to an entity producing chemical products or discrete products. The data consumer may correspond to an entity using the produced product(s) and / or an entity performing the methods disclosed in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. The data provider may be associated with a data provider environment 608. The data consumer may be associated with a data consumer environment 602. The environments may include one or more node(s). The node(s) may be connected via peer-to- peer communication channels to allow data transfer between the nodes, as described in the context of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. The decentral system may include more or less environments than illustrated in FIG. 6.

[0267] Data consumer environment 602 may include a consumer node 232 (e.g. decentral data consuming network node 232) and a consumer backend 604. Consumer node 232 may be configured to communicate with consumer backend 604. Consumer node 232 may be configured to receive data from the consumer backend 604. Consumer node 232 may be configured to receive data from provider node 226. Consumer node 232 may be configured to request data from provider node 226. Consumer node 232 may be configured to receive data from the consumer backend 604 and configured to receive and / or request data from provider node 226. Consumer node 232 may be configured to gather data stored within the decentral network, such as endpoint(s) of provider node(s), access element(s) stored within decentral registry 612 and / or data stored with a dedicated storage 614 associated with the provider node 226 of the data owner. Consumer node 232 may be configured to determine - based on an identifier, such as a product identifier - provider node(s) being associated with the producer of the material or product associated with the identifier. For instance, consumer node 232 may be configured to query an infrastructure environment (not shown in FIG. 6) using the identifier to determine the decentral participant identifier associated with the identifier. The determined decentral participant identifier may then be used by consumer node 232 to query an infrastructure environment to determine provider node(s) associated with said decentral participant identifier. Consumer backend 604 may be configured to send a request for data to consumer node 232. Consumer backend 604 may be configured to store data received from consumer node 232 within a data storage, such as storage 606. Consumer backend 604 may be configured to credit a recyclable amount of material to a virtual material account, for example as described in the context of FIG. 7A, FIG. 7B, FIG. 9 and FIG. 10.

[0268] Data consumer environment 602 may be associated with a participant of the product ecosystem, such as product ecosystem illustrated in FIG. 1 . For instance, data consumer environment 602 may be associated with an output product producer, such as chemical product producer 102 or chemical product user 106, receiving input material(s) and producing output product(s) using the input material(s). In another instance, data consumer environment 602 may be associated with a recycler 114 receiving a used output product or a component thereof from a collector 112.

[0269] Data consumer environment 602 may be associated with a participant of the battery ecosystem, such as the battery ecosystem illustrated in FIG. 2. For instance, data consumer environment 602 may be associated with an output product producer, such as chemical product user 106, receiving chemical products(s) and producing batteries using the chemical product(s). In another instance, data consumer environment 602 may be associated with a metal extractor 212 performing the methods disclosed in FIG. 9, FIG. 10 and FIG. 22.

[0270] Data provider environment 608 may include provider node 226, decentral registry 612 and a provider backend 610. Data provider environment 608 may be associated with a data owner, such as a manufacturer producing output product(s) from one or more input material(s). Data provider environment 608 may include a digital twin storage 614 storing digital twins (e.g. assets and one or more associated aspect(s)) of produced output product(s). The digital twin storage may be a dedicated storage associated with the data owner. The data owner may own such dedicated storage. The data owner may have access to such dedicated storage. Provider node 226 may be configured to provide data, such as access elements stored in decentral registry 614, and aspect(s) and associated asset(s) stored in the digital twin storage 606. Provider node 226 may be configured to perform authentication and authorization step(s) prior to providing data, for example as described with reference to FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 later on. Decentral registry 612 may be configured to store access element(s) associated with digital twin(s) and to provide such access element(s) to provider node 226. Provider backend 610 may be configured to generate access element(s), for example as described in the context of FIG. 14. Provider backend 610 may be configured to generate passports, for example as described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13.

[0271] FIG. 7A and FIG. 7B illustrate examples of an accounting system for allocating amount(s) of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The dashed lines may represent data transfers. The amounts of recyclable material may also be regarded as recyclable material amounts or recyclable amounts of the material. The material may be owned by the material owner. The recyclable amounts of material may be owned by the material owner. The material owner may be the end product producer. The material owner may be the chemical product producer. The amounts of recyclable material may be obtainable by performing a recycling process on an end-of-life product and / or a component thereof and / or production waste (e.g. production scrap) containing such material. The amounts of recyclable material may be related to amounts of recycled material. The recycling process may include one or more steps. For instance, the recycling process may include a collecting and / or sorting step. The recycling process may, alternatively or in addition, include at least one step to obtain the material from the end-of-life product or the component thereof. Such step(s) may include physical and / or chemical methods. For instance, such step(s) may include black mass production and recovery of metals and / or metal salts from such black mass (see also FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B). The amounts of recyclable materials may be defined by the recycling rates associated with the performed step(s).

[0272] The end-of-life product, the component thereof and / or the production waste may contain the material in reacted form. The material, such as a metal, may be present within the end-of-life product, the component thereof and / or the production waste as a chemical compound, e.g. may have undergone at least one chemical reaction during production of the end-of-life product or component thereof. The material, such as a metal, may be present within the end-of-life product, the component thereof and / or the production waste in unreacted form, e.g. may not have undergone at least one chemical reaction during production of the end-of-life product or component thereof.

[0273] The amounts of recyclable material may signify amounts of recycled material resulting from performing a recycling process on the end-of-life product and / or component thereof and / or production waste containing such material. The amounts of recyclable material allocated to the virtual material account may at least in part signify an amount of recycled material that is physically available to produce new chemical intermediate product(s), such as PCAM. Hence, the amount of recyclable material allocated to the virtual material account may at least in part correspond to the amount of the recycled material physically available to produce chemical intermediate product(s) using such recycled material. For instance recycled metals and metal salts may be used to produce PCAM (see FIG. 2). The virtual balancing account may store amounts of recyclable material, where at least a part of the stored amounts may correspond to amounts of recycled material physically available as production input(s) and at least a further part of the stored amounts may correspond to amounts of recyclable material, e.g. recycled material that will become available in the future. Recycled material becoming available in the future may refer to material being present within end product(s) or component(s) thereof which have not yet been subjected to the recycling process.

[0274] The accounting system 708 may be connected to a consumer node 128. The consumer node 128 may be associated with an entity performing at least one recycling step. For instance, the consumer node 128 may be associated with the metal extractor 212 extracting metals or metal salts from black mass produced by black mass producer 210 (see FIG. 2). The consumer node 128 Consumer node 128 may be configured to gather data associated with products (e.g. product data) containing recyclable amounts of material (e.g. products containing components or chemical compounds that can be recycled to obtain the material). The data may be gathered via a decentral network from one or more data providing nodes 122, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6 and FIG. 9. The product data may be gathered for given end product(s) or components thereof, such as batteries, and / or production scrap resulting from battery cell production, from data provider(s) associated with the respective data. The product data may be gathered manually, for example by scanning a physical identifier element attached to the end product or the component thereof. The physical identifier element may encode data associated with decentral identifier(s) associated with such end product or component. The product data may be gathered automatically and / or may be provided by respective data provider(s) upon delivery of the component, such as the battery and / or the production scrap, to data consumer(s) associated with the delivery location. The product data may be gathered automatically and / or may be provided by respective data provider(s) upon performing a recycling process on an end-of-life product resulting from the use of the end-product. The recycling process may include collecting and / or sorting of end-of-life products or components thereof and / or recycling of the end-of-life product or components thereof to obtain recycled material(s). Data provider(s) associated with such respective data may be associated with end product producer(s) producing end products. Such data provider(s) may be determined by consumer node 128 by querying an infrastructure environment of the decentral network (see also FIG. 6) for decentral participant identifier(s) associated with such end product(s) or component(s) thereof. The decentral participant identifier(s) may then be used to determine the provider nodes as described in the context of FIG. 6. The product data may include product composition data associated with the composition of the product. The product data may include component composition data associated with the composition of product components. The product data may include material composition data associated with the composition of chemical products used to produce the product or a component thereof. The product data may include product composition data, component composition data, material composition data or a combination thereof.

[0275] Consumer node 128 may be configured to provide the gathered product data to a material crediting system 710. The material crediting system 710 may include a material data aggregator 704 and an amount generator 706. The material crediting system 710 may be configured to transform the gathered data to an amount of recyclable material. The material crediting system 710 may be configured to generate an accounting transaction including the amount of recyclable material and to provide the accounting transaction to the virtual material account 702. The accounting transaction may be generated as described in the context of FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. The accounting transaction may be a data set including a material identifier and the amount of recyclable material. The data set may further include an owner identifier, a time stamp and / or a date, a virtual material account identifier or a combination thereof. The accounting transaction may be stored within virtual material account 702. A rule set (see FIG. 18A) may be used to determine the appropriate virtual balancing account the amount of recyclable material is to be stored within. Virtual material account 702 may allow to balance amounts of recyclable material(s) on one or more accounts. Example structures of virtual material accounts are illustrated in FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B. Virtual material account 702 may include an accounting table in which the provided accounting transactions are stored or recorded. The accounting table may include material identifier(s) and amount(s) of recyclable material associated with such material identifier(s). The accounting table may further include owner identifier(s), time stamps and / or dates of the accounting transaction(s), the sender of the accounting transaction or a combination thereof. Material identifier(s) may include a material name, a material ID, a batch ID or number or a combination thereof.

[0276] FIG. 7A illustrates a first example of the accounting system 708. The dashed lines may represent data transfers. In the example of FIG. 7A, the data gathered by data consumer 128 is provided to material data aggregator 704. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to aggregate gathered data received from consumer node 128, for example as described in the context of FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to aggregate the gathered data according to aggregation rules, for example aggregation rules described in the context of FIG. 18B. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to determine whether the gathered data contains data set(s) which have already been processed (e.g. aggregated) previously. This allows to avoid double counting of amounts of recyclable material, hence ensuring that the amount of recyclable material allocated to the virtual balancing account corresponds to amount of recycled material obtained from recycling end-of-life products or components thereof containing such material.

[0277] Amount generator 706 may be configured to transform the aggregated data received from material data aggregator 704, for example as described in the context of FIG. 9. Amount generator 706 may be configured to transform or convert the aggregated data to the recyclable amount of material according to transformation rules, for example aggregation rules described in the context of FIG. 18C. Amount generator 706 may be configured to generate an accounting transaction containing the amount of recyclable material. Amount generator 706 may be configured to provide the generated accounting transaction to virtual material account 702.

[0278] In contrast to FIG. 7A, the product data gathered by consuming node 128 is not provided to material data aggregator 704 but to amount generator 706. Amount generator 706 may be configured to transform or convert gathered data per product or component containing the material, for example as described in the context of FIG. 10. The gathered data may be transformed or concerted per product or component thereof according to transformation rules, for example as illustrated in FIG. 18C. Amount generator 706 may hence be configured to transform or convert the gathered data per product or component thereof into recyclable amount contained in the respective product or component thereof. Amount generator 706 may be configured to generate an accounting transaction as previously described. Amount generator 706 may be configured to provide the generated accounting transaction to the virtual material account 702 as previously described. The accounting transaction may be recorded as entry in an accounting table of the virtual material account 702. Single entries associated with recyclable amounts of a given material may be aggregated by material data aggregator 704, for example as described in the context of FIG. 10. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to gather accounting transactions associated with a given material from virtual material account 702 and to aggregate the amount of recyclable material contained in said gathered accounting transactions. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to query virtual material account 702 for entries in the accounting table related to the given material. The data returned from the query may contain accounting table entries associated with the given material and including respective amounts of the recyclable material. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to sum up the amounts contained within the gathered data or query response to determine the total amount of amount for a given recyclable material. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to generate an accounting transaction including the total amount as described previously. Material data aggregator 704 may be configured to provide the accounting transaction to virtual material account 702. The total accounting transaction may be stored within virtual material account 702, for example as entry within an accounting table of virtual material account 702.

[0279] FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B illustrate examples of virtual material accounts and associated metadata. The metadata may relate to the environmental attribute type associated with the material balanced on the respective account. The environmental attribute type “recycled” may signify that the amount of material stored in such virtual balancing accounts is associated with an amount of recycled material and / or recyclable material. The metadata may further relate to the material balanced on the respective account. For instance, the metadata may include a material identifier signifying the material. The metadata may further relate to the unit associated with the amount of recyclable material balanced in the respective account. For instance, the metadata may include a unit signifying an amount, such as grams, kilograms, tons. The metadata may further relate to an owner of the recyclable material. For instance, the metadata may include an owner identifier, such as a decentral participant identifier, owner ID, owner name or a combination thereof. The virtual material accounts may be associated with an account balance quantifying the amount of recyclable material stored in the respective account. The metadata may be used for allocation of amounts of recyclable material to produced chemical intermediate products and / or chemical products, for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. For instance, the metadata of the accounts may be matched with the gathered product data, such as material composition data included in the product data. Once a respective match is found, the transformed or converted amount of recyclable material may be allocated to the matched account. Allocation of the respective amount of recyclable product may result in increase of the balance of the respective matched virtual material account.

[0280] The accounting system 708 may include virtual material account(s) with static or dynamic metadata. For instance, if metadata provided via the accounting transaction does not correspond to any metadata of existing virtual material accounts, a new account associated with such metadata may be generated. Alternatively, or additionally, the amount of recyclable material may be allocated to the virtual material account associated with the greatest match in metadata. Here greatest may refer to the maximal number of matching metadata points, in particular account metadata points matching at least in part with accounting transaction metadata points. For example, the accounting transaction may provide more metadata than any virtual material account. In such a scenario the virtual material account with metadata points matching at least in part with metadata points of the accounting transaction may be selected for allocation.

[0281] In the example of FIG. 8A, the accounting system 708 may comprise a plurality of different virtual material accounts 802a to 802d. Each virtual material account is associated with a particular recyclable material. Each virtual material account is further associated with a particular material owner. Each virtual material account may include an accounting table storing entries. Each entry may include data contained within an accounting transaction provided to the respective account. Data entries may be associated with the allocation of an amount of recyclable material to the respective account resulting in an increase of the account balance (e.g. the amount of recyclable material stored within the respective account). Data entries may be associated with a deduction of an amount of recyclable material by allocating said amount to a produced chemical product as recycled content resulting in a decrease of the account balance.

[0282] FIG. 8B illustrates another example. In this example the virtual material account may be associated with metadata relating to a material class being balanced in this account, such as “metal”. The virtual material account may further be associated with metadata relating to a material owner. Hence, the virtual material account allows to balance amounts of various recyclable materials owned by or associated with the material owner. The virtual material account may include various sub accounts, 840, 846, 852 and 858. Each sub account may be associated with a particular material, such as a particular metal (e.g. lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc.). Each sub account may further be associated with a respective unit as previously described.

[0283] FIG. 9 illustrates a flow chart of a first example method for allocating amounts of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The method illustrated in FIG. 9 may be implemented by the accounting system 708 illustrated in FIG. 7A. The amounts of recyclable material may be present within an end product or a component thereof and / or production waste generated during production of the end product or the component thereof. The amounts of recyclable material may be obtainable by performing a recycling process on an end-of-life product or a component thereof and / or production waste containing such material as described in the context of FIG. 7A. The amounts of recyclable material allocated to the virtual material account may correspond to or relate to future amounts of recycled material, e.g. amounts of recycled material obtained by a future recycling process of the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste containing the material. The amount of recyclable material allocated to the virtual material account may hence signify a supply of recycled material available in the future. The amount(s) of recyclable material may be allocated to one or more virtual material accounts (see FIG. 8A) or to one or more sub accounts of a virtual material account (see FIG. 8B) associated with the respective material. The material may be a metal. The material may be contained as metal compound within an end product, a component thereof and / or production waste. The end product may be a battery. The component may be a battery contained within a machine, such as an electric vehicle. The component may be a component of the battery, such as a battery module or battery cell(s). The production waste may be production scrap resulting from the production of battery cell(s) included in the battery.

[0284] Data related to the material owner and data related to the end product or component thereof containing the recyclable material associated with the material owner may be provided (see block 902). The data may be provided from a computing system connected to consumer node 128. The data may be provided by a user via a communication interface to consumer node 128. The material owner may own at least a part of the recycled material resulting from performing a recycling process on the end-of-life product or component thereof. The material owner may own at least a part of the recyclable material. The amounts of recyclable material resulting from such a recycling process may be owned by the material owner. The material owner may be any participant of the product ecosystem (see FIG. 1). The material owner may be the end product producer. The material owner may be the component producer. The material owner may be the part assembly producer. The material owner may be the chemical product producer. The material owner may be the recycler. Data related to the material owner may include a decentral participant identifier associated with the material owner, a material owner ID, a material owner name or a combination thereof. Data related to the end product or component thereof containing the recyclable material associated with the material owner may include an end product type, a component type, a waste type, end product identifiers, component identifier(s), waste identifier(s), key value pairs of assets or aspects storing composition data or a combination thereof. The component type may signify batteries. The waste type may signify production scrap from battery cell production, The end product type may signify electric vehicles.

[0285] End product data or component data may be gathered based on the provided data via a decentral network (see block 904). The component data may include component data associated with the component and / or waste data associated with the production waste used to produce the component. The decentral network may be decentral network 134 illustrated in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. Referring back to FIG. 6, the data may be gathered via a consumer node associated with the entity performing the method of FIG. 9. The data may be gathered from a provider node associated with the producer of the end product or the component thereof. Accounting system 708 may be part of consumer backend 604 described in the context of FIG. 6.

[0286] With continued reference to FIG. 6 consumer backend 604 may be configured to request decentral participant identifier(s) from a decentral infrastructure node. The request may include key(s) and / or value(s). For instance, the request may contain an end product type, a component type, such as “battery”, or a waste type. In another instance, the request may contain a name of the asset or aspect storing the composition data, such as the product composition data and / or component composition data and / or waste composition data. The request may be authenticated. Upon successful authentication, the decentral infrastructure node may provide one or more decentral participant identifier(s) matching the data contained in the received request.

[0287] With continued reference to FIG. 6 and upon receiving the decentral participant identifier(s), consumer backend 604 may be configured to request endpoint(s) for provider node(s) associated with said received decentral participant identifier(s) from a further decentral infrastructure node. The request may include one or more received decentral participant identifier(s). The request may be authenticated. Upon successful authentication, the further decentral infrastructure node may provide one or more endpoint(s) associated with the received decentral participant identifier(s). The decentral infrastructure node may provide more than one endpoint per decentral participant identifier. The endpoint(s) may be URI(s), such as URL(s) of respective provider node(s). In another embodiment, consumer backend 604 may be configured to send a request for such endpoint(s) to the associated consumer node 232 and consumer node 232 may be configured to request such endpoint(s) from the further decentral infrastructure node. The request may include at least a part of the received decentral participant identifiers. Consumer node 232 may be configured to provide the received end point(s) to consumer backend 604.

[0288] With continued reference to FIG. 6, consumer backend 604 may be configured to generate query data to query decentral registries, such as decentral registry 612, associated with the obtained endpoint(s). The query data may include data related to specific aspects (e.g. data set(s)) of the digital twin. A specific asset may include an asset associated with a component of the end product, such as a battery. The asset (also called battery passport hereinafter) may be included in the digital twin of the end product, such as vehicle, containing the respective battery. Data related to specific aspects may include key value pairs defining such aspects in access elements associated with end products and stored within the decentral registries. Consumer backend 604 may be configured to generate a request for gathering the decentral identifier associated with said end product(s) or component(s) thereof. The request may include at least a part of the received end point(s) and the query data. The request may be provided to consumer node 232. Consumer node 232 may be configured - in response to the request from consumer backend 604 - to generate one or more requests. The one or more requests may include the query data and a decentral participant identifier associated with the consumer node 232. Consumer node 232 may be configured to send such requests to the endpoint(s) included in the request received from consumer backend 604. The request may be authenticated. Such authentication may be based on data related to an authentication mechanism. The authentication mechanism may be based on certificate(s) and / or token(s), for example a device certificate (X.509v3), a TLS connection certificate (X.509v3) and a ‘Dynamic Attribute Token’ (OAuth Access Token), associated with the respective decentral participant nodes, e.g. consumer node 232 and provider node 226. If authentication fails, no data may be provided by respective data provider(s). With continued reference to FIG. 6, provider node(s) may be configured to query associated decentral registry(ies) 612 to determine whether the associated decentral registry 612 includes decentral identifier(s) related to the query data contained in the received request from the consumer node 232. Such query may be performed if the authentication is valid. Provider node(s) not having determined decentral identifier(s) related to the query data may send a respective response to consumer node 232. Provider node(s) not having determined decentral identifier(s) related to the query data may not send any response to consumer node 232. Provider node(s) 226 having determined decentral identifier(s) related to the query data may initiate contract negotiations with consumer node 232. Provider node 226 may provide an electronic contract to consumer node 232. The electronic contract may include one or more authorization rule(s) associated with the decentral identifier. The electronic contract may be provided to consumer backend 604. Consumer backend 604 may parse the received electronic contract to determine the authorization rule(s). The determined authorization rules may be provided to a user for consent. Consumer backend 604 may be configured to automatically accept electronic contracts provided by predefined provider node(s). Consumer backend 604 may provide data being indicative of the signature, such as a token, to consumer node 232. If the electronic contract is not signed, consumer backend 604 may likewise forward data being indicative of declining the contract to consumer node 232. Consumer node 232 may forward this data to provider node 226. Upon declining the contract, provider node 226 may terminate the connection and may not provide any data. Use of the electronic contract ensures that the consumer node 232 and further systems, such as consumer backend 604, handling the data are complying to at least one policy associated with the data.

[0289] Provider node(s) having determined decentral identifier(s) related to the query data may provide such decentral identifier(s) to consumer node 232. Such identifier(s) may be provided upon successful contract negotiation. Consumer node 232 may provide received decentral identifier(s) to consumer backend 604.

[0290] With continued reference to FIG. 6 and upon receiving decentral identifier(s), consumer backend 604 may be configured to generate a request to gather access element(s) associated with at least a part of the received decentral identifier(s). The request may include respective decentral identifier(s). The request may be provided to consumer node 232. Consumer node 232 may be configured to request respective access element(s) from provider node(s) providing decentral identifier(s) included in the received request from consumer backend 604. The request to respective provider node(s) may include the decentral identifier(s) and the decentral participant identifier associated with consumer node 232. Upon receiving the request, provider node(s) 226 may gather access element(s) from associated decentral registry 612 based on the decentral identifier(s) contained in the received request. The gathered access element(s) may then be provided to consumer node 232. Consumer node 232 may provide the received access element(s) to consumer backend 604. Consumer backend 604 may store the access elements in storage 606. With continued reference to FIG. 6, consumer backend 604 may be configured to parse the received access element(s) (e.g. the received access element data). The access element(s) may include one or more aspect(s) (e.g. data set(s)) as described in the context of FIG. 15A and FIG. 15B. Consumer backend 604 may be configured to match - based on the data provided in block 902 - aspect data contained in received access elements with data provided in block 902, such as key value pair(s), to determine decentral identifiers associated with such aspect data. Upon determining a match, the respective request to retrieve such aspect(s) associated with such decentral identifier(s) may be generated. The request may include the decentral identifier of the digital twin and associated decentral identifier(s) of the matching aspect(s). The request may be forwarded to consumer node 232. Consumer node 232 may generate a request to gather said aspect(s) from respective provider node(s). The request may include the decentral identifiers included in the request received from consumer backend 604 and the decentral participant identifier associated with consumer node 232. The request may be provided to respective provider node 226. Consumer node 232 and provider node 226 may be authenticating as previously described.

[0291] Provider node 226 may initiate contract negotiations with consumer node 232 as previously described. Contract negations may be initiated upon successful authentication. Provider node 226 may gather requested aspect(s) from digital twin storage 614 storing digital twin(s) and associated aspect(s) based on the decentral identifier and associated decentral identifier(s) of the aspect(s). The aspect(s) may be gathered upon successful contract negotiations. The peer-to-peer communication channel may be terminated and no aspect(s) may be provided if no electronic contract is signed. The gathered aspect(s) may be provided to consumer node 232. Consumer node 232 may forward the received aspect(s) to consumer backend 604. The received aspect(s) may correspond to data set(s) having a defined semantic structure. The received aspect(s) may include data associated with the material configuration of the end product (e.g. end product composition data). The received aspect(s) may include data associated with the material configuration of the component (e.g. component composition data). The received aspect(s) may include data associated with the material configuration of the production waste (e.g. waste composition data). The respective composition data may be related to the amount of recyclable material contained within the end product, component thereof and / or the production waste. The composition data may include the amount of recyclable material. The composition data may include the amount of chemical compounds containing the recyclable material in reacted or unreacted form. An example of battery passport data (e.g. aspect data) associated with different batteries that may be provided from a data provider is illustrated in FIG. 11 .

[0292] Consumer backend 604 may be configured to store the received aspect(s) (e.g. the received data set(s)) in a data storage 606. The aspect(s) may be stored according to rule(s) stipulated by the signed electronic contract. Consumer backend 604 may further be configured to generate a request to gather decentral identifier(s) associated with discrete component(s) used to produce the end product based on the decentral identifier associated with end product. Consumer backend 604 may further be configured to generate a request to gather decentral identifier(s) associated with chemical product(s) used to produce the end product or the component thereof, based on the decentral identifier associated with the end product or the component thereof, respectively. Such requests may be generated if the received aspect(s) do not contain sufficient data on the amount of recyclable material contained within the end product or the component thereof. The decentral identifier(s) associated with discrete component(s) used to produce the end product and / or chemical product(s) used to produce the discrete component(s) or the end product may be gathered based on aspects defining relationships between decentral identifier of the end product (e.g. parent identifier) and decentral identifiers (e.g. child identifier(s)) production input(s) used to produce the end product. Recursive query for child identifier(s) of a given decentral identifier (e.g. parent identifier) allows to determine a bill of material of the end product or component thereof. The determined child identifier(s) may then be used to gather the desired data indicating the amount of recyclable material as previously described.

[0293] The gathered data may be aggregated by applying at least one aggregation rule to the gathered data associated with the end products or components thereof (see block 906). The gathered data may include composition data as previously described and the at least one aggregation rule may be applied to such composition data. Data aggregation may be performed by material data aggregator 704 of accounting system 708 (see FIG. 7A). Data aggregation may be performed according to at least one aggregation rule illustrated in FIG. 18B.

[0294] With reference to FIG. 18B, aggregation of the gathered data may include generating a list of all data sets (e.g. aspects) of products (e.g. end products or components thereof) containing a given material. For instance, a list of all batteries containing Nickel may be generated from the gathered battery passport data containing the composition of the cathode active material and anode active material present within the battery (see for example FIG. 11).

[0295] With continued reference to FIG. 18B, aggregation of the gathered data may include selecting from the gathered data all aspects of products (e.g. end products or components thereof) containing a material content of more than a given value. A list may be generated from the selected assets. The list may include the decentral battery identifiers of the batteries associated with the selected asset. The list may include the aspect data for all selected batteries. For instance, all batteries with a Nickel content of greater than 15 % may be selected from gathered battery passport data.

[0296] With continued reference to FIG. 18B, aggregation of the gathered data may include selecting from the gathered data all aspects of products (e.g. end products or components thereof) containing a material content of less than a given value. A list may be generated from the selected assets. The list may include the decentral battery identifiers of the batteries associated with the selected assets. The list may include the aspect data for all selected batteries. For instance, all batteries with a Cobalt content of less than 10% may be selected from gathered battery passport data.

[0297] With continued reference to FIG. 18B, aggregation of the gathered data may include selecting from the gathered data all aspects of products (e.g. end products or components thereof) not considered fit for second use. Such aspects may be selected based on state of health data contained in the aspects. Such aspects may be selected by a data driven model trained on historical (e.g. existing) aspect data. The trained data driven model may be configured to predict which products are considered to be not fit for second use based on aspect data associated with such products, for example based on state of health data contained in the battery passport of batteries. A list may be generated from the assets considered not fit for second use. The list may include the decentral battery identifiers of the batteries associated with the selected assets. The list may include the aspect data for all selected batteries. For instance, all batteries with a Cobalt content of less than 10% may be selected from gathered battery passport data.

[0298] With continued reference to FIG. 18B, aggregation of the gathered data may include selecting from the gathered data all aspects of products (e.g. end products or components thereof) have an environmental attribute, such as a carbon footprint value, of greater than a given value. The carbon footprint may be given in kg CO2 eq. / kg of product. A list may be generated from the selected assets. The list may include the decentral battery identifiers of the batteries associated with the selected assets. The list may include the aspect data for all selected batteries. For instance, all batteries with a carbon footprint content of greater than 140 kg CO2 eq. / kg product may be selected from gathered battery passport data.

[0299] A total amount of recyclable material may be determined by applying at least one transformation rule to the data aggregated in block 906 (see block 908). Data transformation may be performed by amount generator 706 of accounting system 708 (see FIG. 7A). Data aggregation may be performed according to at least one aggregation rule illustrated in FIG. 18C. Amount generator 706 may be configured to store identifier(s), such as decentral identifier(s), associated with the aggregated data. Amount generator 706 may be configured to compare such stored identifier(s) with identifier(s) contained in further aggregated data received from material data aggregator 704. This may allow to avoid that data contained within aggregated data received from material data aggregator 704 is used more than once to determine the total amount of recyclable material, hence ensuring that the amount of recyclable material is determined correctly from the data available within the decentral network. This may allow to ensure that the amount of recyclable material is determine in a reliable way from the data available within the decentral network resulting in a reliable accounting of recyclable material(s) in the virtual material account(s).

[0300] With reference to FIG. 18C, a total amount of recyclable material may be determined from the aggregated data by summing up the absolute amount of recyclable material (e.g. variable X) per product included in the aggregated data and multiplying to the sum of absolute amounts with the total yield of the recycling process. The absolute amount of recyclable material per product may be gathered from the respective aspect associated with such product. For instance, the total amount of recyclable nickel metal from batteries owned by a material owner may be determined by summing up the absolute Nickel mass amount included in each battery passport contained in or associated with the aggregated data. The absolute amount of recyclable material per product included in the aggregated data may be determined by multiplying the total weight of the respective product with the relative amount of recyclable material present within the respective product. For instance, the absolute amount of recyclable nickel metal per battery may be determined by multiplying the total weight of the respective battery included in the battery passport with the relative amount of Nickel present within the respective battery. The total yield of the recycling process may be determined by multiplying the yields per recycling step necessary to produce the recycled material from the end product or component thereof. For instance, the total yield of the battery recycling process to obtain recycled metals or metal salts may be obtained by multiplying the yield of the black mass production with the yield of the metal extraction associated with the respective metal.

[0301] The determined total amount of recyclable material may be allocated via an accounting transaction associated with said recyclable material to at least one virtual material account (see block 910). Exemplary virtual material account(s) are illustrated in FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B. The accounting transaction may include the determined total amount and a material identifier as described in the context of FIG. 7A. The accounting transaction may further include the material owner associated with the recyclable material, a time stamp and / or date, the accounting transaction provider or a combination thereof. The accounting transaction may be provided to at least one virtual material account. The respective virtual material account may be selected based on allocation or attribution rule(s). Exemplary attribution rule(s) are illustrated in FIG. 18A.

[0302] With reference to FIG. 18A, the respective virtual material account may be selected based on the material. For instance and as described in the context of FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B, metadata of the virtual material accounts may be matched with data contained in the accounting transaction, such as the material identifier signifying a given material. For instance, the material identifier signifying a given metal, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese or aluminum, may be matched to metadata related to the given metal.

[0303] With continued reference to FIG. 18A, the respective virtual material account may be selected based on the material and associated material owner. For instance and as described in the context of FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B, metadata of the virtual material accounts may be matched with data contained in the accounting transaction, such as the material identifier signifying a given material and an owner identifier signifying an associated material owner. This may allow to allocated amounts of a given recyclable material, such as a given metal, to virtual balancing accounts associated with different material owners. With continued reference to FIG. 18A, the respective virtual material account may be selected based on the material type or material class. For instance and as described in the context of FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B, metadata of the virtual material accounts may be matched with data contained in the accounting transaction, such as the material identifier signifying a given material class. For instance, the material identifier signifying metal may be matched to metadata related to the given material class being metal.

[0304] With continued reference to FIG. 18A, the respective virtual material account may be selected based on a material class and a material owner associated with the material belonging to the material class. For instance and as described in the context of FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B, metadata of the virtual material accounts may be matched with data contained in the accounting transaction, such as the material identifier signifying a given material class and an owner identifier signifying an associated material owner. This may allow to allocated amounts of a given recyclable material, such as a given metal, to virtual balancing accounts associated with different material owners.

[0305] By allocating amounts of recyclable material contained within end products, components thereof and / or production waste to virtual material accounts based on data contained in digital twins of such end products, components thereof and / or production waste, the amount of recyclable material present within end-products, components thereof and / or production waste and hence also the available amount of recycled material is made accountable. This may allow to track and / or monitor the amount of available recycled material by a material owner. This may moreover allow to control flows of such recycled material. For instance, the material owner may control the use of such recycled material upon production of new chemical intermediate products and / or chemical products, enabling the material owner to selectively assign recycled content stemming from the amounts of recyclable material allocated to the virtual balancing account to produced chemical intermediate products, such as PCAM, or chemical products, such as CAM. This may allow the material owner to increase the rate of recycled content present within products, such as batteries and machines containing such batteries, and to decrease associated environmental footprint. Moreover, this may allow the material owner to secure access to required amounts of recycled material by retaining the ownership of the materials during the production and recycling chain of the product ecosystem.

[0306] FIG. 10 illustrates a flow chart of a second example method for allocating amounts of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The method illustrated in FIG. 10 may be implemented by the accounting system 708 illustrated in FIG. 7B. The amounts of recyclable material may be present within an end product, a component thereof and / or or production waste generated during the production of the end product and / or the component thereof. The amount of recyclable material allocated to the virtual material account may signify a supply of recycled material available in the future as described in the context of FIG. 9. The amount(s) of recyclable material may be allocated to one or more virtual material accounts (see FIG. 8A) or to one or more sub accounts of a virtual material account (see FIG. 8B) associated with the respective material. The material may be a metal. The material may be contained as metal compound within an end product, a component thereof and / or production waste generated during production of the end product and / or the component thereof. The end product may be a battery. The component may be a battery contained within a machine, such as an electric vehicle. The component may be a battery part, such as a battery module or a battery cell. The production waste may be generated during production of the battery cell(s).

[0307] Data related to the material owner and data related to the end product or component thereof containing the recyclable material associated with the material owner may be provided (see block 1002), for example as described in the context of FIG. 9.

[0308] Data associated with the end products or components thereof may be gathered based on the provided data via a decentral network (see block 1004), for example as described in the context of FIG. 9.

[0309] An amount of recyclable material per end product, component thereof and / or production waste may be determined by applying at least one transformation rule to the data gathered per end product or component thereof (see block 1006). Data transformation may be performed by amount generator 706 of accounting system 708 (see FIG. 7B). Data transformation may be performed according to at least one transformation rule illustrated in FIG. 18C. With reference to FIG. 18C, an amount of recyclable material(s) may be selected per gathered asset or aspect associated with the end product, the component thereof and / or the production waste. For instance, the amount of recyclable metal(s) may be selected per gathered battery passport associated with the battery and / or or per gathered cathode active material passport associated with the production scrap. The amount may be selected by parsing the gathered aspect or asset data to determine the amount(s) of given recyclable material(s) contained within the aspect or asset data.

[0310] The determined amount of recyclable material(s) per end product, component thereof and / or production waste may be allocated via an accounting transaction associated with said recyclable material(s) to at least one virtual material account (see block 1008), for example as described in the context of FIG. 9. An accounting transaction may be generated per amount of recyclable material. An accounting transaction may be generated for a plurality of amounts of different recyclable materials.

[0311] At least a part of the amount of recyclable material stored in the at least one virtual material account may be aggregated (see block 1010). Data aggregation may be performed by material data aggregator 704 of accounting system 708 (see FIG. 7B). Data aggregation may be performed according to at least one aggregation rule illustrated in FIG. 18B.

[0312] With reference to FIG. 18B, aggregation of the stored amounts of a given recyclable material may include selecting all amounts for a given recyclable stored within the account and determining the total amount by summing up all selected amounts. For instance, a total amount of recyclable Nickel stored in a virtual material account may be generated by selecting all amounts of recyclable Nickel stored in the virtual material account and summing up all selected amounts of Nickel.

[0313] The aggregated or total amount of recyclable material may be allocated via a further accounting transaction associated with said recyclable material to the at least one virtual material account (see block 1012), for example as described in the context of FIG. 9. An accounting transaction may be generated per aggregated amount of recyclable material. An accounting transaction may be generated for a plurality of aggregated amounts of different recyclable materials.

[0314] By allocating amounts of recyclable material contained within end products, components thereof and / or production waste generated during production of the end product and / or the component thereof to virtual material accounts based on data contained in digital twins of such end products, components thereof and / or production waste, the amount of recyclable material present within end-products, components thereof and / or production waste and hence also the available amount of recycled material is made accountable. This may allow to monitor the amount of available recycled material by a material owner. This may moreover allow to control flows of such recycled material. For instance, the material owner may control the use of such recycled material upon production of new chemical intermediate products and / or chemical products, enabling the material owner to selectively assign recycled content stemming from the amounts of recyclable material allocated to the virtual balancing account to produced chemical intermediate products, such as PCAM, or chemical products, such as CAM. This may allow the material owner to increase the rate of recycled content present within products, such as batteries and machines containing such batteries, and to decrease associated environmental footprint. Moreover, this may allow the material owner to secure access to required amounts of recycled material by retaining the ownership of the materials during the production and recycling chain of the product ecosystem.

[0315] FIG. 11 illustrates example component passport data structures based on decentral identifiers. The example passport data structure may be associated with an end product or a component thereof. The component may be a battery or a part thereof. The end product or component may be associated with a physical identifier, such as ID1 or ID2. The physical identifier may correspond to an identifier element physically attached to the end product or component thereof, for example as described in the context of FIG. 3 and FIG. 4. Each data structure may include a decentral identifier, such as a UUID or a DID. The decentral identifier may be associated with the physical identifier, such as ID1 , ID2, of the end product or component thereof. This allows to link the physical entity of the end product or component thereof with the respective data structure.

[0316] The data structure may correspond to an aspect or asset of a product gathered via a decentral network as described in the context of FIG. 6, FIG. 9 and Fig. 10. The data structure may be stored on a storage environment of or associated with the data owner of the data structure. The data owner may be a data owner as described in the context of FIG. 1 . The data structure may describe properties of the associated end product or component thereof. The data structure may be regarded as a digital twin or a part thereof of the physical entity of the end product or component thereof.

[0317] In this example, the data contained in the data structure may include manufacturing data of the battery, chemical and / or physical property data, emission data, battery identifiers, and lifetime data of the battery. Manufacturing data may include data on the manufacturer of the battery, such as name and / or address, and data on the manufacturing location and date, such as the address of the manufacturing location and the manufacturing date, and data on the warranty period. Chemical property data of the battery may include data on the composition of the battery or parts thereof, such as the cathode active material, the anode active material and the electrolyte, electrochemical properties, the presence of critical raw materials etc. Physical property data may include data on the dimensions of the battery, and temperature ranges in idle state. Emission data may include carbon dioxide footprint information associated with the battery. Lifetime data of the battery may be acquired by the BMS of the battery and may be used to update the data contained in the data structure. This way, the data structure reflects the current state of the battery, hence representing a digital twin of the battery throughout its lifetime. Lifetime data may include the state of health, the state of charge, the status of the battery, such as first life, waste, repaired, repurposed, recycled and the battery life cycle. Battery identifiers may include data related to the battery type, such as LFP, Natrium, Na-Ion, Li-Ion, NMC, NCA, Solid-State, and battery identifiers including a string and / or number(s).

[0318] FIG. 12 and FIG. 13 illustrate examples of a system for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to production input(s) to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The environmental attribute may signify a recycled content of the produced chemical product. The environmental attribute may signify a recycled metal content of the produced chemical product. The produced chemical product may be an intermediate chemical product, such as pCAM. The produced chemical product may be cathode active material (CAM). The environmental attribute assigned or attributed to the produced chemical product may stem from an amount of recyclable material stored in a virtual material account. The recyclable material may correspond to or be related to at least one production input used to produce the chemical product. For instance, the recyclable material may be related with a metal salt recyclable from batteries, components thereof and / or production waste and used to produce pCAM. The apparatuses illustrated in FIG. 12 and 13 may be configured to perform the methods illustrated in FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B.

[0319] The systems may include a chemical production 1204 producing one or more chemical product(s) (also denoted as output product 1206 hereinafter) from one or more production input(s) (e.g. input material 1202). The system may further include an operating system including an accounting system 708.

[0320] For producing one or more chemical product(s) 1206 different input materials (feedstocks) 1202 may be provided as physical inputs from material providers or suppliers (see FIG. 1 , FIG. 2). The chemical products 1206 produced from the input materials 1202 may be supplied to chemical product user 106, for example as described in the context of FIG. 1. The pCAM produced from the input materials 1202 may be supplied to CAM producer, for example as described in the context of FIG. 2. The chemical production 1204 may be a chemical production network. The chemical production network may include multiple interlinked processing steps. The chemical production network may be an integrated chemical production network with connected or interconnected production chains. The chemical production network may include multiple different production chains that have at least one intermediate product in common. The chemical production network may include multiple stages of the chemical value chain. The chemical production network may include the producing, refining, processing and / or purification of chemical products. The chemical production network may include multiple production chains that produce from one or more input material(s) chemical products that exit the chemical production network. The chemical production network may include multiple tiers of a chemical value chain. The chemical production network may include physically connected or interconnected supply chains and / or production sites. The production sites may be at the same location or at different locations. In the latter case, the production sites may be connected or interconnected by means of dedicated transportation systems such as pipelines, supply chain vehicles, like trucks, ships or other cargo transportation means.

[0321] The chemical production 1204 may chemically convert input materials 1202 via chemical intermediates to one or more chemical product(s) 1206 that exit the chemical production 1204 . The chemical production 1204 may convert input material(s) 1202 by way of chemical conversion to one or more chemical product(s).

[0322] The input material(s) 1202 may be fed into the chemical production 1204 at any entry point. The input material(s) 1202 may be fed into the chemical production 1204 at the start of the chemical production 1204. Input materials may for example make up the feedstock of the plant performing the first production step of the production chain associated with the chemical product.

[0323] The chemical production 1204 may product the chemical product 1206 via multiple production steps. The production steps may be defined by the system boundary of the chemical production 1204 . The system boundary may be defined by location or control over production processes. The system boundary may be defined by the site of the chemical production 1204 . The system boundary may be defined by production processes controlled by one entity or multiple entities jointly. The system boundary may be defined by a value chain with staggered production processes to an end product, which may be controlled by multiple entities separately. The chemical production 1204 may include a waste collection and sorting step, a recycling step such as pyrolysis, a cracking step such as steam cracking, a chemical reaction step, a separation step to separate outputs of one process step and further processing steps to convert such outputs to a chemical product leaving the system boundary of the chemical production 1204 . With reference to FIG. 12, the operating system 1208 of the chemical production 1204 may monitor and / or control the chemical production 1204 based on operating parameters of the different processes. One process step monitored and / or controlled may be the feed of input materials or the discharge of chemical products. Another process step monitored and / or controlled may be the selection of virtual material accounts storing amounts of recyclable material. Yet another process step monitored and / or controlled may be the allocation of an amount of recyclable material stored in the selected virtual material account to a chemical product identifier associated with the chemical product. Yet another process step monitored and / or controlled may the generation of product passports associated with the produced product and including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount of recyclable material.

[0324] The operating system may be configured to perform at least part of the steps described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. The operating system may include an accounting system 708. The accounting system 708 may be configured to select virtual material accounts storing amounts of recyclable material. The accounting system 708 may include material amount allocator 1210. Material amount allocator 1210 may be configured to select virtual material account(s) using at least one allocation rule as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. The at least one allocation rule may be stored in a database 1214 and may be gathered by material amount allocator 1210. The material amount allocator 1210 and database 1214 may be part of a material debiting system 1902 illustrated in FIG. 19. Examples of allocation rule(s) or dis-aggregation rule(s) stored in database 1214 are illustrated in FIG. 18D and FIG. 18E.

[0325] Material amount allocator 1210 may be configured to allocate an amount of recyclable material stored in the selected virtual material account(s) to a chemical product identifier associated with a produced chemical product, for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. Allocation may be performed based on an allocation rule set (also denoted as dis-aggregation rule set hereinafter). Examples of allocation rule(s) are illustrated in FIG. 18D. Material amount allocator 1210 may be configured to convert the allocated amount to an environmental attribute, such as recycled content. The allocated amount may be converted to an environmental attribute based on the amount of production input(s) related to the allocated amount of recyclable material. For instance, an allocated amount of recyclable metal may be converted to environmental attribute “recycled metal content”. The amount of recycled metal content may be determined based on the amount of metal salt used to produce the chemical product (e.g. pCAM) and the allocated amount. Material amount allocator 1210 may be configured to provide the environmental attribute to passport generator 1218.

[0326] The operating system may further include product data provider 1216. Product data provider 1216 may be configured to provide data associated with the chemical product. Product data provider 1216 may be configured to request allocation of amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material account 702 to chemical product identifier(s). The request may include the data associated with the chemical product. Data associated with the chemical product may include a chemical product identifier associated with the produced chemical product. The chemical product identifier may include a chemical product ID, a chemical product name, a batch number, a LOT number, an order number or a combination thereof. Data associated with the chemical product may further include data associated with production input(s) used to produce the chemical product. Such data may be gathered as described in the context of FIG. 14. Data associated with the chemical product may further include data associated with the chemical product producer and / or data associated with the chemical product user.

[0327] The operating system may further include a passport generator 1218 configured to generate chemical product passports associated with the produced chemical products. The chemical product passports may correspond to at least a part of a digital twin of the chemical product. The digital product passports may correspond to a data structure having a defined semantic structure. The digital product passport generator may be configured to generate the product passport as described in the context of FIG. 14. The generated product passport may include the chemical product identifier(s) provided by product data provider 1216 and data related to the allocated amount of recyclable material provided by material amount allocator 1210. The data related to the allocated amount of recyclable material may be provided by material amount allocator 1210. Such data may include a recycled content associated with at least one production input used to produce the chemical product. The generated product passports may be stored in passport storage 1212.

[0328] Passport generator 1218 may further be configured to generate access elements as described in more detail in FIG. 14. The access elements may be associated with the produced chemical products and hence also with the respective generated chemical product passports. The access elements may include a decentral chemical product identifier and access data. Access data may point to the database storing the respective aspect or asset, such as passport storage 1212. Passport generator 1218 may be configured to provide generated access elements to decentral registry 1220 for storage. Passports generated by passport generator 1218 may be accessible via decentral data providing network node 116. Decentral data providing network node 116 may be configured to gather access element(s) from decentral registry 1220 upon request of a consumer node, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6, FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. Decentral data providing network node 116 may be configured to gather product passports from passport storage 1212 upon request of a consumer node, for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B.

[0329] In contrast to FIG. 12, the accounting system 708 is not part of the operating system 1208 of the chemical production 1204 in FIG. 13. The accounting system 708 may be operated by a third party not being associated with the entity running the chemical production 1204. The accounting system 708 may be configured to provide data related to allocated amounts of recyclable material to passport generator 1218 of operating system 1208 as described in the context of FIG. 12. FIG. 14 illustrates an example of a chemical product passport generator in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The chemical product passport generator may correspond to passport generator 1218 described in the context of FIG. 12 and Fig. 13.

[0330] The chemical production 1204 may produce one or more chemical output products 1206 from at least one input material 1202 as described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13. Data related to the production of the chemical product may be collected and may be stored in database 1412. The data related to the production of the discrete component may be collected prior to, during and / or after production of the output product 1206. The data may be collected by product data collector 1402 of passport generator 1218. Data related to the production may include input material data. The input material data may be collected via a decentral network 134 using data consuming network node 124A associated with chemical product producer 206 from miner 202 or recycler 212 (see also FIG. 2). The input material data may be generated in association with one or more network nodes, e.g. in relation to data generating node(s), associated with the respective producer. Collecting input material data may include gathering decentral identifiers(s) associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the discrete component. The decentral identifier(s) associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the discrete component may be collected by reading an identifier element, such as a bar code or QR code, connected to the input material 1202. The identifier element may encode a product identifier which may be used to gather input material data, for example using the principle illustrated in FIG. 6. The gathered input material data may be stored in database 1410. Data related to the production may include production process data. Data related to the production may include at least one chemical and / or physical property of the produced chemical product. The chemical and / or physical property may include a measured property. The chemical and / or physical property may include a property determined from measured data. The data related to the production may further include chemical product opposition data, safety data, technical data or a combination thereof.

[0331] One or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the produced output product 1206 may be provided by ID provider 1404. The one or more decentral identifier(s) may be uniquely associated with the physical entity of the output product 1206. The one or more decentral identifier(s) may be uniquely associated with any entity produced by any participant of the production chain. The one or more decentral identifier(s) may comprise any unique identifier uniquely associated with the output product 1206, the production participant(s) of the production chain producing the entity and / or the data related to the production of the output product 1206. The decentral identifier may include or relate to one or more Universally Unique Identifier(s) (UUID(s)) or one or more Digital Identifier(s) (DID(s)). Via the decentral identifier(s) and the unique association with the output product 1206, the producer and / or the access to the product passport may be controlled by the chemical product producer. This contrasts with central authority schemes, where identifiers are provided by such central authority and access to such data is controlled by such central authority. Decentral in this context refers to the usage of the identifier in implementation as controlled by the data owner.

[0332] The product passport may be generated by 1408. The product passport may be generated by applying a respective aspect model to the data stored in 1410 and 1412. The product passport may be regarded as an aspect or asset of the digital twin of the chemical product. The generated product passport may be provided to passport storage 1212 as described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13. Chemical product users 208 may access the product passport via data providing node 124B associated with the chemical product producer 206, for example via an identifier element physically attached to the produced output product. The identifier element may encode a digital chemical product identifier usable to gather the product passport via the decentral network. The identifier element may represent an identifier usable to gather the product passport via the decentral network.

[0333] Passport generator 1218 may further include an access element generator (not shown), configured to generate an access element. The access element generator may be separate from passport generator 1218. The access element may include a decentral identifier and access data. The decentral identifier may be associated with or include the decentral identifier provided by ID provider 1404. The access data may be associated with the product passport. The access data may be generated per product passport or asset generated. The access data may point to the product passport or parts thereof. The access data may relate to the dedicated storage associated with the chemical production 1204 and storing the product passport. The access data may include a locator or pointer locating or pointing to the dedicated passport storage 1212. The access data may include one or more digital link(s) pointing to the product passport. The access data may include a locator or pointer, such as am url or uri, to a dedicated storage address of passport storage 1212. The access data may comprise at least one interface to a data providing network node. The access data may include at least one interface to a data consuming network node. The access data may include an endpoint for data exchange or sharing (resource endpoint) or an endpoint for service interaction (service endpoint), that may be uniquely identified via the data transaction protocol. The access data pointing to the collected data or parts thereof may be uniquely associated with the decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may be connected to the access data of the collected data or parts thereof.

[0334] The access element may be associated with the produced chemical product. The access element may be provided to decentral registry 1220. The decentral registry 1220 may be associated with a decentral data providing network node, such as node 124B, associated with the producer of the output product 1206. The access element may be accessible by other participants of the decentral network, such as recycler 212, via an associated decentral data consuming network node, such as node 214, for example as described in the context of FIG. 2. The access element may be retrieved from such decentral registry by a decentral data providing network node associated with said decentral registry (e.g. having access to such decentral registry) and may be provided to the data consuming network node(s) upon request from such data consuming network node(s) (see FIG. 6). The access element may be associated with the product passport. Exemplary access elements are illustrated in FIG. 15A and FIG. 15B. The access element may include access data for one or more passport(s) or aspect(s).

[0335] The access element may further include one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with the decentral identifier(s) and the access data. The one or more authentication mechanism(s) may be associated with or linked to decentral identifier(s), such as decentral chemical product identifier. The one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with the decentral identifier(s) may be accessible by the decentral participant network node(s). The digital access element may further relate to authorization information linked to the decentral identifier(s). The authorization information may be associated with the decentral identifier(s) and the access data. The authorization information may include access rules depending on the data set to be accessed and the role of the accessing data consuming network node.

[0336] FIG. 15A illustrates a first example of a digital access element including a decentral identifier and access data. The digital access element may be stored within a decentral identity infrastructure. The decentral identity infrastructure may allow retrieval of the access element using the decentral identifier.

[0337] The decentral identifier may include a Decentralized Identifier (DID). The decentral identifier-based digital access element may in this case be a DID document 1504 associated with the DID. Besides the DID document 1504 serving as digital access element, FIG. 15A shows a DID owner data element 1502 including decentral identifier-based owner data. Generally, the decentral identifier-based owner data may include the decentral identifier associated with a subject such as the end product or a part thereof and may include one or more authentication mechanism(s). The decentral identifier-based owner data 1502 may include owner data that is electronically owned and controlled by the DID owner. In this context electronically owned may refer to data that is stored in an owner repository or wallet. Such data may be securely stored and / or managed on an organizational server or client device. The decentral identifierbased owner data 1502 may include a DID, a private key and a public key. The DID owner may own and control the DID that represents an identity associated with the DID subject, a private key and public key pair that are associated with the DID. DID may be understood as an identifier and authentication information associated with or uniquely linked to the identifier.

[0338] The DID subject may be a raw material, a basic substance, a chemical product, a component, an end product or a recycled material. The DID subject may be a machine, a system, or a device used for producing the raw material, the basic substance, the chemical product, the component, the end product, the recycled material or a collection of such machine(s), device(s) and / or system(s). The DID owner may be a supply chain participant or a manufacturer such as a chemical manufacturer producing chemicals. The DID owner may be an upstream participant of the recycler 114, such as an end-product producer 108. The DID owner may be a downstream participant of the recycler 114, such as chemical product producer 102. The DID owner may be any participant of the product ecosystem including raw chemical supplier, intermediate chemical product producer, chemical product producer, intermediate part producer, component producer, component assembly producer, end product producer, end product user, EOL collector or recycler.

[0339] The DID may be any identifier that is associated with the DID subject and / or the DID owner. Preferably, the identifier is unique to the DID subject and / or DID owner. The identifier may be unique at least within the scope in which the DID is anticipated to be in use. The identifier may be a locally or globally unique identifier for the raw material, a basic substance, a chemical product, a component, an end product, the recycled material or a collection thereof; the machine, the system, or the device used for producing the raw material, a basic substance, a chemical product, a component, an end product, the recycled material, or the collection of such machine(s), device(s) and / or system(s); the chemical manufacturer producing chemicals, the upstream participant of the chemical manufacturer, the downstream participant of the chemical manufacturer or a collection thereof; any participant of the material ecosystem including raw chemical supplier, intermediate chemical product producer, chemical product producer, intermediate part manufacturer, component producer, component assembly producer, end product producer, end product user, EOL collector or recycler.

[0340] The DID may be any identifier that is associated with the DID subject and the DID owner. Preferably, the DID is unique to the DID subject and / or DID owner. The DID may be unique at least within the scope in which the DID is anticipated to be in use. The DID may be a locally or globally unique identifier for any of the above mentioned possible DID subjects. The DID may also be a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Moreover, the DID may be an Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI). The DID may be a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The DID may be an Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI). The DID may be a random string of numbers and letters for increased security. In one embodiment, the DID may be a string of 128 letters and numbers e.g. according to the scheme did:method name: method specific-did such as did:example:ebfeb1f712ebc6f1 c276e12ec21 . The DID may be decentralized ID independent of a centralized, third party management system and under the control of the DID owner.

[0341] The digital access element as DID document data 1504 may be associated with the DID, i.e. the DID included in the decentral identifier-based owner data 1502. Accordingly, the digital access element may include a reference to the DID, which is associated with the DID subject that is described by the DID document 1504. The DID document 1504 may also include an authentication information such as the public key. The public key may be used by third-party entities that are given permission by the DID owner / subject to access information and data owned by the DID owner / subject. The public key may also be used for verifying that the DID owner, in fact, owns or controls the DID. The DID document may include authentication information, authorization information e.g. to authorize third party entities to read the DID document or some part of the DID document e.g. without giving the third party the right to prove ownership of the DID. The digital access element 1504 may include access data that digitally links to data included in the digital twin the digital access element is associated with, e.g. by way of service endpoints. Data included in the digital twin may correspond to one or more data set(s) or aspect(s) having a defined semantic structure. Each aspect may be associated with access data pointing to said respective data set. This may allow to retrieve specific aspects without having to retrieve the entire digital twin, hence avoiding necessary transfer of data within the decentral network. A service endpoint may include a network address at which a service operates on behalf of the DID owner. In particular, the service endpoints may refer to services, such as decentral data providing network node(s), of the DID owner that give access to data, such as composition data associated with the end product or the component thereof. Such services may include services to read or analyze data contained in the product data.

[0342] The digital access element 1504 may include further identifiers, such as data set identifier(s) associated with data set(s) (e.g. aspects) included in the digital twin data.

[0343] The digital access element 1504 may include various other information such metadata specifying when the digital access element was created, when it was last modified and / or when it expires.

[0344] The DID and digital access element 1504 may be associated with a data registry node such as a centralized data service system or a decentralized data service system 1506 , e.g. a distributed ledger or blockchain or a decentralized file system. The distributed ledger or blockchain may be used to store a representation of the DID that points to the digital access element 1504. A representation of the DID may be stored on distributed computing nodes of the distributed ledger or blockchain 1506. For example, DID hash may be stored on multiple computing nodes of the distributed ledger and point to the location of the digital access element 1504. In some embodiments, the digital access element 1504 may be stored on the distributed ledger 1506. Each of the computing nodes may store a copy of the distributed ledger 1506. In this way, each DID hash can be stored redundantly, thereby allowing for an increased data safety. DIDs associated with a plurality of different digital access element 1504 may be included in the distributed ledger 1506.

[0345] In some embodiments, the digital access element 1504 may be stored on the distributed ledger 1506, i.e. either additionally or alternatively to the associated DID representation being stored on the distributed ledger 1506. In other embodiments, the digital access element 1504 may be stored in a data storage (not illustrated) that is associated with the distributed ledger or blockchain or decentralized file system.

[0346] The distributed ledger or blockchain 1506 may be any decentralized, distributed network that includes various computing nodes that are in communication with each other. For example, the distributed ledger 1506 may include a first distributed computing node, a second distributed computing node, a third distributed computing node, and any number of additional distributed computing nodes (not shown). The distributed ledger or blockchain 1506 may include known technology stacks like Bitcoin (see e.g. Bitcoin documentation of November 11 , 2022 published https: / / en.bitcoin.it / wiki / Protocol_documentationX Ethereum (see e.g. Ethereum documentation of August 15, 2022 published on https: / / ethereum.org / en / developers / doc lana (see e.g. Solana documentation of November 11 , 2022 published on https: / / spl.solana.com / ), Polygon (see e.g. Polygon documentation of November 11 , 2022 published on https: / / wiki. polygon. technology / ) or other implementations with varying degree of data transactions performed on the distributed ledger. The description of the example framework is only for illustrative purposes and shall not be considered limiting.

[0347] FIG. 15B illustrates a second example of a digital access element including a decentral identifier and access data. The digital access element may be stored within a decentral registry, such as decentral registry 612 of FIG. 6) associated with a participant of the decentral network. The access elements stored in such decentral registry may be retrieved via an associated decentral data providing network node using the decentral identifier.

[0348] The decentral identifier may include one or more Universally Unique Identifier(s) (UUID(s)). The decentral identifier may include a first decentral identifier and a second decentral identifier. The first and the second decentral identifier may be different from each other. The first decentral identifier may signify the decentral identifier associated with the digital twin of the output product while the second decentral identifier may signify a decentral identifier associated with a data set (e.g. aspect) associated with the output product or the component thereof, contained within in the digital twin. The output product may be any product produced within the product ecosystem. The output product may be a chemical intermediate product or a chemical product. The output product may be a component. The output product may be an end product. The access element may be generated as described in the context of FIG. 14.

[0349] The UUID may be unique at least within the scope in which the UUID is anticipated to be in use. The UUID may be a locally or globally unique identifier for a raw material, a basic substance, a chemical product, a component, an end product or a recycled material. In one embodiment, the UUID may be a string of 128 letters and numbers e.g. according to the scheme [0-9a-fA-F]{8}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA- F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}. The UUID may be a decentralized ID independent of a centralized, third party management system and under the control of the data owner owning the data associated with the UUID.

[0350] The decentral identifier-based digital access element 1508 may be a JSON data structure including the decentral identifier. The JSON data structure may include one or more key-value pairs. The JSON data structure may include one or more arrays. At least a part of the arrays may include one or more object(s). The object(s) may include one or more key-value pair(s).

[0351] The digital access element 1508 may include access data that digitally links to data, such as aspect(s), the digital access element is associated with, e.g. by way of service endpoints. A service endpoint may include a network address at which a service operates on behalf of the data owner. In particular, the service endpoints may refer to services, such as decentral data providing network node(s), of the data owner that give access to product data, such as composition data associated with the end product or the component thereof. Such services may include services to read or analyze data contained in the product data.

[0352] The digital access element 1508 may include various other information such metadata specifying when the digital access element was created, when it was last modified and / or when it expires (not shown in FIG. 15B).

[0353] The digital access element 1508 may be associated with a data registry node such as a decentral registry (not shown, see for example decentral registry 612 in FIG. 6). The decentral registry may be a decentral database. The decentral database may be associated with the data owner of the digital twin. The decentral registry may be used to store digital access elements, such as digital access element 1508.

[0354] FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B illustrate examples of methods for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a recyclable material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The methods described in FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B may be implemented by the systems described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13, respectively. In particular, the methods described in FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B may be implemented by the operating system 1208 of FIG. 12 or by the accounting system 708 and the operating system 1208 described in the context of FIG. 13. The production input(s) may be metals or metal salts. The chemical product may be a precursor cathode active material. The production inputs may be precursor cathode active material. The chemical product may be a cathode active material. The environmental attribute may signify an attribute associated with the recycling of the material. The environmental attribute may signify that the material is recyclable. The material may be owned by the material owner. The material owner may be any participant of the product ecosystem. The material owner may be the chemical product producer. The material owner may be a component producer. The material owner may be an end product producer.

[0355] The chemical product may be produced from input material entering a chemical production, such as described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13. On entry of the input material, corresponding input material data may be provided via a network to the interface of the operating system (see for example FIG. 14). Input material data may include an input material identifier and data related to the input material (see for example FIG. 14). A data provider may be configured to provide input material data to a computing interface configured to store the gathered input material data (see FIG. 14). The input material data may be provided on, prior to or after providing the one or more input material(s) at entry points to the chemical production. Data associated with the produced chemical product (e.g. chemical product data) including a chemical product identifier may be provided (see block 1602), for example by product data provider 1216 (see FIG. 12 and FIG. 13). The product data provider 1216 may be configured to provide the chemical product data after production of the chemical product. Product data provider 1216 may be configured to generate chemical product data from input material data and data collected prior to, upon or after production of the chemical product (see FIG. 14). The chemical product data may further include data related to the chemical product data, such as a chemical product specification data, chemical product amount or a combination thereof. Product data provider 1216 may be configured to request allocation of amounts of recyclable material to chemical product identifier(s) of produced chemical product(s). The request may include the data associated with the chemical product.

[0356] One or more allocation rule(s) for allocating amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material account(s) to produced chemical product(s) may be provided. The allocation rule(s) may be stored in a database associated with the system performing at least a part of the methods (see for example FIG. 12 and FIG. 13). Examples of allocation rule(s) are illustrated in FIG. 18E. The virtual material account(s) may store amount(s) of recyclable material allocated to such accounts as described in the context of FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. The recyclable material(s) balanced on such virtual material account(s) may correspond to or be associated with production input(s) used to produce the chemical product. For instance, the recyclable material(s) balanced on such account(s) may correspond to metal(s) or metal salt(s) used as production input(s) to produce precursor cathode active material and cathode active material.

[0357] Via the provided one or more allocation rule(s), virtual material account(s) storing amounts of recyclable material may be determined (see block 1606), for example by material amount allocator 1210 (see FIG. 12 and FIG. 13). Virtual material account(s) storing such amounts may be provided as described in the context of FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 by allocating recyclable amounts of material to such accounts. The amounts of recyclable material stored within such account(s) may denote the amount of recycled material available upon recycling the recyclable material. Determining the virtual material account(s) may include selecting or determining at least one provided allocation rule. The allocation rule may be selected or determined based on the provided data related to the produced chemical product. For instance, the chemical product identifier may be used to select or determine the allocation rule(s). With reference to FIG. 18E, the allocation rule(s) may include instructions to select one or more virtual material account(s) storing amounts of recyclable material. The allocation rule(s) may include instructions to determine potentially accessible virtual material account(s) based on the input material(s) used to produce the chemical product. For instance, the input material data may be parsed by material amount allocator 1210 to determine the input material(s) and associated amounts used to produce the chemical product. The determined input material(s) may be matched to virtual material account metadata to determine potentially accessible accounts (e.g. accounts associated with metadata matching at least in part with the input material data) (see for example FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B). For instance, the determined input material name(s) may be matched to account metadata indicating the name of the recyclable material associated with such virtual material account. With reference to FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B, the determined input material name “material 1 ” may be matched to the metadata of virtual material account 802a associated with “material 1 ” (e.g. balancing amounts of recyclable material 1). Alternatively, or additionally, the greatest match in metadata may be determined. Here greatest may refer to the maximal number of matching metadata points, in particular account metadata points matching at least in part with input material data points. For example, the input material data may provide more data points than the metadata of any virtual material account. In such a scenario the virtual material account with metadata points matching at least in part with the data points included in the input material data may be selected as potentially accessible.

[0358] With continued reference to FIG. 18E, the allocation rule(s) may further include instructions to determine for each potentially accessible virtual material account the available amount of recyclable material (e.g. the amount of recyclable material stored in such account(s)). The available amount of recyclable material within each potentially accessible account may be determined from the account balance. The account balance may be determined by deducting the sum of recyclable material allocated to the respective account from the sum of recyclable material deducted from the respective account. The allocation rule(s) may further include instructions to select accessible virtual material account(s) from the list of potentially accessible accounts based on determined available amount of recyclable material stored within said account and the determined amount of input material used to produce the chemical product. This may include comparing the determined available amount of recyclable material stored in each potentially accessible account with the amount of respective input material determined from the provided input material data. A conversion factor may be used in case the input material is of a different chemical form than the recyclable material balanced on such account. For instance, the amount of metal present within a metal salt used as input material to produce pCAM or CAM may be determined if the potentially relevant account balances metal instead of associated metal salt. If the potentially accessible account stores enough amount of recyclable material (e.g. if the amount of recyclable material stored in such account is equal to or higher than the determined amount of input material), such account may be signified as “accessible”. If the potentially accessible account stores not enough amount of recyclable material (e.g. if the amount of recyclable material stored in such account is less than the determined amount of input material), such account may be signified as “not accessible”.

[0359] With continued reference to FIG. 18E, the allocation rule(s) may further include instructions to select accessible virtual material account(s) and associated amounts of recyclable material. Associated amounts of recyclable material may refer to amounts of recyclable material determined from the provided input material data (e.g. amounts of recyclable material to be deducted from the accessible virtual material account(s) upon allocation of such amount to the chemical product identifier).

[0360] Referring back to FIG. 16A and with continued reference to FIG. 18E, an amount of recyclable material stored in the determined virtual material account(s) may be allocated to the chemical product identifier based on the chemical product data and the provided allocation rule(s) (see block 1612). Allocation may be performed by generating chemical product passport(s) associated with such produced products. The amount of recyclable material allocated to the chemical product identifier may correspond to the amount of input material related to the recyclable material and being used to produce the chemical product. The input material related to the recyclable material may including input material corresponding to the recyclable material. For instance, the recyclable material balanced in a virtual material account may correspond to metal or metal salt used as input material to produce a precursor cathode active material. Allocation of an amount of recyclable material stored in an accessible virtual material account may result in deduction or de-allocation of such amount from the virtual material account, e.g. the balance of such account is reduced by the amount of allocated recyclable material. The amount of recyclable material allocated to the chemical product identifier may be related to the amount of input material. For instance, a given percentage of the amount of input material may be allocated. The percentage may be predefined or may be given by a user upon generating the request for allocation.

[0361] The allocation of the amount of recyclable material may be performed by generating an accounting transaction and providing the accounting transaction to the respective virtual material account(s). The accounting transaction may specify the amount of recyclable material to be allocated per virtual material account and the chemical product identifier.

[0362] The allocation of the amount of recyclable material to the chemical product identifier may be performed using allocation rule(s). This may allow to control allocation such that the amounts of recyclable material balanced on such account(s) may only be assigned to particular chemical product(s). For instance, the allocation may be performed using the allocation rule(s) illustrated in FIG. 18D. Allocation may only be performed, if at least one allocation rule is satisfied. Otherwise, the request to allocate amounts of recyclable material to a chemical product identifier may be rejected. With reference to FIG. 18D, the attribution rule may depend on the input material type such as metal or metal salt or pCAM. The attribution rule may depend on the chemical product type, such as pCAM or CAM. The attribution rule may depend on the input material type and the chemical product producer. The attribution rule may depend on the chemical product type and the chemical product producer. This may allow to control or define that only given chemical product producers are allowed to allocate amounts of recyclable material to given produced chemical products. The attribution rule may depend on the input material type and the chemical product producer. The attribution rule may depend on the chemical product type and the chemical product user, e.g. the entity consuming the chemical product to produce further products, such as further chemical products or discrete products. This may allow to control or define that only chemical product producers are allowed to allocate amounts of recyclable material if they produce for a given chemical product consumer. The attribution rule may depend on the input material type and the chemical product producer and the chemical product user. The attribution rule may depend on the chemical product type and the chemical product producer and the chemical product user. This may allow to control or define that only given chemical product producers are allowed to allocate amounts of recyclable material if they produce a given chemical product type for a given chemical product consumer.

[0363] With reference to FIG. 16A, the step of allocation may include a step of determining if the balance of the determined virtual material account(s) is sufficient (see decision block 1608 of FIG. 16B). This may include determining whether any of the virtual material account(s) storing amounts of recyclable material related to the input material used to produce the chemical product is signified as accessible in block 1606. If the balance is not sufficient, the request to allocate an amount of recyclable material to the chemical product may be rejected (see block 1620). An indication of such rejection may be provided, for example to a user. If the balance is sufficient, an amount of recyclable material stored in the determined virtual material account(s) may be allocated as previously described.

[0364] The product passport(s) may be generated by passport generator 1218 (see FIG. 12 and FIG. 13). The product passport may include the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s). Via the chemical product identifier, the product passport may be associated with the physical entity of the chemical product. The product passports may further include one or more decentral identifier(s). The decentral identifier(s) may be associated with data associated with the produced chemical product. The chemical product passports may further include data associated with the produced chemical product. The chemical product passport may be generated by applying a semantic model to chemical product data. The chemical product data may include the data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s). The product passport may hence comprise a defined semantic structure. Generation of chemical product passports may allow to convert amounts of recyclable material stored in the virtual material account(s) to chemical product passport(s) associated with produced chemical products, for example as illustrated in FIG. 17. In addition, generation of chemical product passports may allow to convert amounts of recyclable materials and hence environmental attributes associated with said amounts, such as recycled content, into a digital asset (e.g. chemical product passport) associated with a produced chemical product. The data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) may include a recycled content of the produced end product. The recycled content of the chemical product may be determined from the recycled content of all input material(s) used to produce the chemical product. The recycled content may signify the recycled content of input material(s) used to produce the chemical product. The recycled content of the input material(s) may be associated with or correspond to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s). The recycled content may signify the recycled content of the chemical product and the recycled content of input material(s) used to produce the chemical product. The generated chemical product passports may be stored in a database, such as passport storage 1212 (see FIG. 12 and FIG. 13).

[0365] The generated chemical product passport(s) may be provided for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the product passport(s) (see block 1614). The data owner may be the chemical product producer. The decentral network may be decentral network 134 described in the context of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. The product passports may be provided for access via an access element (see also FIG. 15A, FIG. 15B) stored in a decentral registry 1220, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6.

[0366] In contrast to FIG. 16A, the system performing the method of FIG. 16B is not generating the chemical product passports. This may, for example, be the case if a separate accounting system 708 next to an operating system generating the chemical product passports is used (see for example FIG. 13). In this case, allocation may be performed as previously described and the chemical product identifier and the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) may be provided to a chemical product passport generator for generation of chemical product passports based on the received chemical product identifier and allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) as previously described.

[0367] By allocating amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in virtual material accounts to a produced chemical product and by generating chemical product passports for such produced chemical product(s), a conversion between different semantic domains may be achieved. For instance, chemical product passport(s) associated with end product(s), components thereof, such as batteries, and / or production waste, such as production scrap generated during production of battery cell(s), may be converted to amounts of recyclable material, e.g. indexable amounts, and may be stored on virtual material account(s). This may enable conversion of physical products into an accountable material and trading of such accountable material. Upon production of chemical product(s) using production input(s) related to such recyclable material(s) balanced on such account(s), the amounts of recyclable materials stored in such account(s) may be converted back into chemical product passports for the produced chemical product(s). The indexable amounts may be used as “lingua franca” such that two semantic domains can form an intersection of shared meaning. The validity of transactions in the intersection (e.g. the validity of accounting transactions to credit or debit the respective virtual material accounts) may be easily supervised by all involved parties. In addition, such validity may also be easily supervised by third parties for auditing purposes. Use of allocation rule(s) may allow to control allocation of such amounts of recycled materials stored within the virtual material account(s) such that allocation may only be performed if a given set of criteria is fulfilled. The criteria may be defined by the material owner, such as an end product producer, allowing the material owner to control allocation of recycled content to produced chemical products and hence also to components and / or end products produced from such chemical products. This way, the material owner may control the degree of recycled content within end product(s). This may allow to increase the recycled content of end product(s), hence allowing material owners, such as end product producers, to steer the recycled content within their products to improve the environmental impact of their products.

[0368] FIG. 17 illustrate examples of allocating amounts of a recyclable material stored in a virtual material account to chemical product identifiers by generating chemical product passport(s) for different batches of a chemical product. The chemical product passports may be generated as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. The chemical product passports may include data related to the amount of recyclable material allocated from the respective virtual material account to the chemical product identifier. The chemical product may be an intermediate chemical product, such as pCAM. The chemical product may be CAM.

[0369] In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 17, virtual material account 802a is used for allocation of amounts of a recyclable material to produced batches of a chemical product. Virtual material account 802a may be part of a material accounting system including a plurality of virtual material accounts. Virtual material account 802a may be associated with a recyclable material 1. The account may store 500 kg of this recyclable material 1 , such as 500 kg of recyclable metal. Recyclable metal may include lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum. The account may be associated with a material owner, in this case end product producer OEM1. This example is only used for illustration and should not be considered limiting with respect to the number of accounts present within the virtual balancing system. For instance, the material accounting system may include more accounts or sub accounts for a plurality of different materials as illustrated in FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B.

[0370] This account is used to allocate the amount of recyclable material stored therein to chemical product identifiers associated with different batches of a produced material, such as pCAM or CAM. For allocation, the amount of recyclable material may be assigned to the chemical product identifier associated with the respective batch. The chemical product identifier may be uniquely linked to the physical entity of the batch. The chemical product identifier may include the batch identifier and / or the order identifier. In other embodiments, the chemical identifier may be linked to the physical entity of the batch by way of a physical identifier with encoded chemical product identifier and physically connected to the batch. For example, a tag or a QR code may be physically connected to the batch and the chemical product identifier may be encoded into the tag or QR code. This way the chemical product identifier may be uniquely linked to the physical entity of the batch exiting the chemical production .

[0371] A chemical product passport 1724, 1726, 1732 may be generated for each produced batch of chemical product and may include data being indicative of such assignment. For instance, the passports may include data related to the allocated amount of recyclable material, such as recycled content data. The recycled content may be determined as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. The recycled content may depend on the amount of recyclable material allocated to the respective chemical product identifier. The amount of recyclable material allocated to the chemical product identifier may depend on the amount of input material(s) used. For instance, a percentage may be used to define that a lower fraction of recyclable amount is allocated than determined based on the amount of input material. This may allow to adjust the allocated amount and hence also the resulting recycled content of the produced chemical product. The amount of recyclable material allocated to the chemical product identifier may be given, e.g. each time an allocation is requested, a defined amount of recyclable material may be allocated to the chemical product identifier. This may allow to evenly distribute the amount of recyclable material and hence associated recycled content to produced chemical products. Allocation of amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material account 802a may result in deduction of such amounts form the account balance. For instance, upon allocation of 200 kg of recyclable amount stored in virtual material account 802a to chemical product identifier (ID1) of a first batch of chemical product, the remaining account balance of virtual material account 802a may correspond to 300 kg. Deduction ensures that no double counting can occur, e.g. amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material account 802a can only be assigned once to a chemical product identifier. This allows reliable accounting of recyclable material(s) in a virtual balancing system and hence also reliable assignment of environmental attribute(s) associated with such recyclable materials to produced chemical products.

[0372] The remaining balance may be used to for further allocation and passport generation. However, no further allocation may be performed if the balance in virtual material account 802a has reached 0, e.g. if all amount of recyclable material stored therein has been allocated. If virtual material account 802a has reached a balance of 0, further product passports may be generated for further produced batches of the chemical product. However, such product passports may not contain data associated with the allocated amount of recyclable material. Chemical products associated with such passports may have a lower degree of recycled content compared to the chemical product(s) associated with product passports including such data associated with the allocated amount of recyclable material.

[0373] FIG. 19 illustrates an example of a material accounting system for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to a recyclable material associated with a material owner to one or more produced chemical product(s) in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. Parts of the accounting system 708 may be used to implement the method described in the context of FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. Parts of the accounting system may further be used to implement the method described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. The accounting system may further be used to implement the method described in the context of FIG. 22.

[0374] The accounting system 708 may comprise a material crediting system 710 and a material debiting system 1902. The material crediting system 710 may be connected to a consumer node 128. The consumer node 128 may be part of a decentral network, such as decentral network 134 described in the context of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. The consumer node 128 may be configured to consume data, such as product data associated with end-products or components thereof, via the decentral network from data providers, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6, FIG. 7A and FIG. 7B. The material crediting system 710 may correspond to material crediting system 710 described in the context of FIG. 7A and FIG. 7B. Material crediting system 710 may be configured to allocate amounts of recyclable material based on data gathered by consumer node 128 to virtual material account 702, for example using the method described in the context of FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. The material debiting system 1902 may be configured to allocate (e.g. debit) amounts of recyclable material from virtual material account 702 to chemical product identifier(s), for example using the method described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. The chemical product identifier(s) may be provided by product data provider 1216 (see for example FIG. 12, FIG. 13).

[0375] FIG. 20A and Fig. 20 illustrate examples of a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable material to produced chemical products via an accounting system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present. The material may be a recyclable material as described in the context of FIG. 9. The material may be associated with a material owner. The material owner may own the material. The material owner may own recycled material resulting from performing at least one recycling operation on end products, components thereof and / or production waste containing the material. The material owner may control the use or assignment of environmental attributes related to the material to produced chemical products. The chemical product may be produced from one or more production input(s) as described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13.

[0376] The material loop may include various participants involved in the production of end products and in the recycling of resulting end-of-life products or components thereof (see also FIG. 1). In this example, the material loop may include chemical product producer(s), chemical product user(s), end product producer(s) and recycler(s). Recycled material produced by one or more recycler(s) may be used by chemical product producer(s) to produce new chemical products. Such new chemical product(s) may be used by chemical product user to produce discrete products, such as components or component assemblies. Transfer of produced output product(s) from one participant to the subsequent participant of the material loop are illustrated by fat solid lines. The products produced by chemical product user 106 may be transported to and used by end-product producer 108 to produce end products. The end products may be provided to end-product user 110 who may use such end products. Upon reaching their end of life, the end-product user 110 may discard the products. The end-of-life products may be collected and / or sorted and may be recycled by recycler 114 to obtain recycled material. The recycled material may be provided to chemical product producer 102 for producing chemical product(s) using the recycled material obtained from recycler 114.

[0377] In the example of FIG. 20A and Fig, 20B, the end product producer is the material owner. However, this merely serves for illustration purposes and should not be considered limiting. In principle, each participant of the product ecosystem including the material loop may be the material owner. An accounting system, such as accounting system 708 described in the context of FIG. 19, may be used to allocate amounts of recyclable material associated with the material owner to virtual balancing account(s) and to debit such amounts upon allocation to produced chemical products, for example as described in the context of FIG. 22. The accounting system 708 may include one or more virtual material account(s), for example as described in the context of FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B (for simplicity, only one account is illustrated in FIG. 20A and FIG. 20B which should not be considered limiting). The accounting system 708 may be run by any participant of the material loop. In this example, the accounting system 708 is run by a recycler, such as recycler 114. In another example, the accounting system 708 may be run by end-product producer 108, a chemical product producer or a chemical product user. The material owner may access the virtual material account 702. Hence, the virtual material account 702 may be shared (e.g. accessible) by at least two parties of a product ecosystem. The material owner may determine the balance of virtual material account 702, for example via an application. The application may access virtual material account 702 and may determine the balance of all virtual material accounts associated with the material owner. For instance, data being indicative with the material owner may be provided to the application and the application may query accounting system 708 for virtual material accounts associated with such data. The application may display a graphical user interface, such as the graphical user interface 2106 shown in FIG. 21. The graphical user interface may display the account balance for all accounts owned by the user, such as the material owner. The user may be able to view details for each balance, such as crediting transactions and debiting transactions. The user interface may also allow the user to deduct an amount of recyclable metal stored in the account (not shown). The material owner may debit amounts of recyclable material from such virtual material account 702. The accounting system 708 may be configured to perform at least a part of the method described in the context of FIG. 22.

[0378] Material crediting system 710 of accounting system 708 may be configured to allocate amounts of recyclable material to virtual material account 702 based on data gathered via a decentral network, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6, FIG. 7A and FIG. 7B. The data may be gathered from a data provider associated with the end-product producer 108. The data may be gathered from a data provider associated with any participant of the product ecosystem storing the required data to allocate the amount of recyclable material to virtual material account 702. For example, the data provider may be associated with chemical product user 106 and / or chemical product producer 102 and / or chemical product producer 2004.

[0379] Material debiting system 1902 may be configured to allocated (e.g. debit) amounts of recyclable material to chemical product identifier(s) associated with products produced by chemical product producer 102 or chemical product producer 2004, for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. Allocation rule(s) may be used to control allocation of such amounts. In the examples illustrated in FIG. 20A and FIG. 20B, allocation rule(s) may be used to control allocation of recyclable amounts of material to chemical product(s) produced by chemical product producers, for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. In the example of FIG. 20A, chemical product producer 102 or chemical product producer 2004 deliver chemical product(s) to chemical product user 106 with in turn produces products for end-product producer 108 being the material owner. Hence, chemical product producer 102 or chemical product producer 2004 are allowed to allocate recyclable amounts of material to their produced chemical product(s) since this allows material owner and end-product producer 108 to produce end products having an improved environmental impact, such as increased recycled content, arising from the allocation performed by chemical product producer 102 or chemical product producer 2004.

[0380] In contrast to the scenario described in FIG. 20A, FIG. 20B illustrates a scenario where chemical product producer 102 and / or chemical product producer 2004 do(es) not deliver products to chemical product user 106 associated with the end-product producer 108. Instead, chemical producer 2004 delivers produced chemical products to a further chemical user 106. Since allocation of amounts of recyclable material from virtual material account 702 to chemical product(s) produced by chemical product producer 102 and / or chemical product producer 2004 may not benefit the environmental impact of end products produced by the material owner, the material owner (in this case end-product producer 108) may not allow allocation of amounts stored in virtual material account 702. Hence, chemical product producer 102 and chemical product producer 2004 may not be able to allocate amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material account 702 of accounting system 708 to their produced products. Accounting system 708 may reject such requests from chemical product producer 102 and chemical product producer 2004 based on such allocation rule(s).

[0381] By allocating amounts of recyclable material to virtual balancing accounts based on data gathered via a decentral network, such as data stored within product passports associated with end products, components thereof and / or production waste, the amount of recyclable material contained within such end products, components thereof and / or production waste is made accountable. The accounting may be performed prior to the actual recycling such that the balance of such accounts may denote the amount of recycled material available in the future. Such accounting may allow to assign accounted amounts of recyclable material chemical products produced using production input(s) related to such recycled material, for example to chemical product(s) produced from such recycled material. Via such accounting, the environmental attributes of such accounted materials, such as recycled content associated with such accounted materials, may be assigned to produced chemical product(s). By using allocation rule(s), the material owner of the recyclable material and hence also the recycled material resulting from recycling end-of-life products, components thereof and / or production waste containing the recyclable material may control allocation of such environmental attributes to chemical products. This may allow to control environmental impact of produced end products since such environmental impact is closely related to the environmental impact of production input(s) used to produce the end product.

[0382] FIG. 20C and FIG. 20D illustrate examples of a system for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable metal to produced precursor cathode active materials (pCAM) or cathode active materials (CAM) via an accounting system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present. The metal may be present within a battery. The metal may be present within the cathode active material of the battery. The metal may be present within production waste generated during production of battery cell(s). The battery may be contained within an end product, such as an electric vehicle. The metal may be associated with a material owner. The material owner may own the metal. The material owner may own recycled metal or metal salt resulting from performing at least one recycling operation on batteries and / or production waste containing the metal within cathode active material. The material owner may control the use or assignment of environmental attributes related to the metal to produced pCAM and CAM. The pCAM may be produced from metals or metal salts obtained by performing extraction steps on black mass (see FIG. 5A, FIG. 5B). The CAM may be produced from pCAM. The pCAM and / or CAM may be produced by PCAM & CAM producer 206.

[0383] The material loop may include various participants involved in the production of battery containing end products and in the recycling of resulting end-of-life products or components thereof (see also FIG. 2). In this example, the material loop may include PCAM & CAM producer 206, battery producer 208, endproduct producer 108, black mass producer 210 and metal extractor 212. Transfer of produced output product(s) from one participant to the subsequent participant of the material loop are illustrated by fat solid lines. Metal extractor 212 and PCAM & CAM producer 206 may be a single entity, e.g. one single entity may extract metals from black mass and produce pCAM and CAM. Recycled metals or metal salts produced by metal extractor 212 may be delivered to and used by PCAM & CAM producer 206 to produce new CAM. Such new CAM may be delivered to and used by battery producer 208 to produce new batteries. Production of new batteries may result in the generation of production scrap including cathode active material. The batteries produced by battery producer 208 may be delivered to and used by endproduct producer 108 to produce battery containing end products, such as electric vehicles. The production scrap may be provided to black mass producer 210. The end products may be provided to end-product user 110 who may use such end products. Upon reaching their end of life, the end-product user 110 may discard the end products. The end-of-life products may be collected and / or sorted by EOL product collector 112. The collected and / or sorted batteries and / or the production scrap may be provided to and processed by black mass producer 210 into black mass, for example as described in the context of FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B. The produced black mass may be provided to metal extractor 212. Metal extractor 212 may perform leaching process(es) to extract one or more metals from the black mass. The metals may be extracted in the form of metal salt solutions. The extracted metals or metal salt solutions may be used to produce pCAM (see FIG. 5A).

[0384] In the example of FIG. 20C and Fig, FIG. 20D, the end-product producer 108 is the material owner. However, this merely serves for illustration purposes and should not be considered limiting. In principle, each participant of the product ecosystem including the material loop may be the material owner. An accounting system, such as accounting system 708 described in the context of FIG. 19, may be used to allocate amounts of recyclable metal associated with the material owner to virtual balancing account(s) and to debit such amounts upon allocation to produced pCAM or CAM, for example as described in the context of FIG. 22. The accounting system 708 may include one or more virtual material account(s), for example as described in the context of FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B (for simplicity, only one account is illustrated in FIG. 20A and FIG. 20B which should not be considered limiting). The accounting system 708 may be run by any participant of the material loop. In this example, the accounting system 708 is run by metal extractor 212. In another example, the accounting system 708 may be run by end-product producer 108, a PCAM & CAM producer 206 or battery producer 208 The material owner may access the virtual material account 702. The material owner may determine the balance of virtual material account 702. The material owner may debit amounts of recyclable metal from such virtual material account 702. The material owner may determine the balance of virtual material account 702, for example via an application as described in the context of FIG. 20A and FIG. 20B. The accounting system 708 may be configured to perform at least a part of the method described in the context of FIG. 22.

[0385] Material crediting system 710 of accounting system 708 may be configured to allocate amounts of recyclable metal to virtual material account 702 based on data gathered via a decentral network, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6, FIG. 7A and FIG. 7B. The data may be gathered from a data provider associated with the end-product producer 108. The data may be gathered from a data provider associated with any participant of the product ecosystem storing the required data to allocate the amount of recyclable metal to virtual material account 702. For example, the data provider may be associated with battery producer 208 and / or PCAM & CAM producer 206.

[0386] Material debiting system 1902 may be configured to allocated (e.g. debit) amounts of recyclable metal to chemical product identifier(s) associated with pCAM or CAM produced by PCAM & CAM producer 206, for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. Allocation rule(s) may be used to control allocation of such amounts. In the examples illustrated in FIG. 20C and FIG. 20D, allocation rule(s) may be used to control allocation of recyclable amounts of metal to pCAM or CAM produced by PCAM & CAM producer 206, for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. In the example of FIG. 20C, PCAM & CAM producer 206 delivers CAM to battery producer 208 with in turn produces products for end-product producer 108 being the material owner. Hence, PCAM & CAM producer 206 is allowed to allocate recyclable amounts of metal to their produced CAM since this allows the material owner and end-product producer 108 to produce end products, such as electric vehicles, having an improved environmental impact, such as increased recycled content, arising from the allocation performed by PCAM & CAM producer 206.

[0387] In contrast to the scenario described in FIG. 20C, FIG. 20D illustrates a scenario where PCAM & CAM producer 206 does not deliver CAM to battery producer 208 associated with the end-product producer 108. Since allocation of amounts of recyclable metal from virtual material account 702 to CAM produced by PCAM & CAM producer 206 may not benefit the environmental impact of end products produced by the material owner, the material owner (in this case end-product producer 108) may not allow allocation of amounts stored in virtual material account 702. Hence, PCAM & CAM producer 206 may not be able to allocate amounts of recyclable metal stored in virtual material account 702 of accounting system 708 to its produced CAM. Accounting system 708 may reject such requests from such PCAM & CAM producer 206 based on such allocation rule(s).

[0388] By allocating amounts of recyclable metal to virtual balancing accounts based on data gathered via a decentral network, such as battery data stored within battery passports associated with batteries and / or waste data stored within passports associated with production scrap, the amount of recyclable metal contained within such batteries and / or within such production waste is made accountable. The accounting may be performed prior to the actual recycling such that the balance of such accounts may denote the amount of recycled metal available in the future. Such accounting may allow to assign accounted amounts of recyclable metal to pCAM or CAM produced using production input(s), such as metal salts or pCAM, related to such recycled metal. Via such accounting, the environmental attributes of such accounted metal, such as recycled content associated with such accounted metal, may be assigned to produced pCAM or CAM. By using allocation rule(s), the material owner of the recyclable metal and hence also the recycled metal resulting from recycling batteries may control allocation of such environmental attributes to pCAM or CAM. This may allow to control environmental impact of produced end products since such environmental impact is closely related to the environmental impact of production input(s) used to produce the end product.

[0389] FIG. 22 illustrates a flow chart of an example method for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to a recyclable material to produced chemical products in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present. The material may be a recyclable material. The material may be contained within an end-product, a component thereof and / or production waste generated during the production of the end product and / or the component thereof. The environmental attribute may be related to the recyclability of the material. The chemical product may be produced by a chemical production, for example as described in the context of FIG. 12 and FIG. 13. The chemical product may be produced from production input(s) related to the material. For example, the chemical product may be produced from production input(s) corresponding to the material. The method illustrated in FIG. 22 may at least in part be performed by an accounting system, such as accounting system 708 illustrated in FIG. 19. The accounting system 708 may include one or more virtual material account(s), for example as illustrated in FIG. 8A and FIG. 8B. The virtual material accounts may be configured to balance amounts of recyclable material.

[0390] Amounts of recyclable material may be allocated or credited to the balance of at least one virtual material account (see block 2202). For example, material crediting system 710 of accounting system 708 may be configured to allocate or credit such amounts based on data gathered from a decentral network, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6, FIG. 7A, FIG. 7B, FIG. 9, FIG. 10, FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. Crediting or allocating may result in increasing the amount of recyclable material present within the respective account (e.g. increasing the account balance). Crediting or allocating may result in conversion of data used within one semantic domain, such as data contained within passports associated with end products or components thereof, into entries of an accounting table included in the respective virtual material account. The virtual material account may be shared (e.g. accessible) by at least two parties of a product ecosystem (see FIG. 20A to FIG. 20D)

[0391] Data associated with the produced chemical product (e.g. chemical product data) including a chemical product identifier may be provided as described in the context of FIG. 16A and Fig. 16B (see block 2204), for example by product data provider 1216 (see FIG. 12 and FIG. 13).

[0392] One or more allocation rule(s) for allocating amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material account(s) to produced chemical product(s) may be provided (see block 2206), for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and Fig. 16B.

[0393] Via the provided one or more allocation rule(s), virtual material account(s) storing amounts of recyclable material may be determined (see block 2208), for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B.

[0394] An amount of recyclable material stored in the determined virtual material account(s) may be allocated to the chemical product identifier based on the chemical product data and the provided allocation rule(s) (see block 2210), for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. Allocation may result in debiting the amount from the virtual material account, hence reducing the balance of said amount by the allocated amount.

[0395] Product passport(s) associated with the produced chemical product may be generated (see block 2212), for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. Generation of chemical product passports may allow to convert the amount of recyclable material allocated to the chemical product back into another semantic domain.

[0396] The generated product passport(s) may be provided for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the product passport(s) (see block 2214), for example as described in the context of FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B.

[0397] By allocating amounts of recyclable material stored in virtual material accounts to a produced chemical product and by generating chemical product passports for such produced chemical product(s), a conversion between different semantic domains may be achieved. For instance, product passport(s) associated with end product(s) or components thereof, such as batteries, may be converted to amounts of recyclable material, e.g. indexable amounts, and may be stored on virtual material account(s). This may enable conversion of physical products into an accountable material and trading of such accountable material. Upon production of chemical product(s) using production input(s) related to such recyclable material(s) balanced on such account(s), the amounts of recyclable material stored in such account(s) may be converted back into product passports for the produced chemical product(s). The indexable amounts may be used as “lingua franca” such that two semantic domains can form an intersection of shared m...

Claims

CLAIMS1. A method for allocating amount(s) of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the method comprising the steps of: providing data related to the material owner and data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material; gathering - based on the provided data - end product data and / or component data via a decentral network; aggregating the gathered data by applying at least one aggregation rule to the gathered data; determining the amount(s) of recyclable material by applying at least one transformation rule to the aggregated data; allocating via an accounting transaction the determined amount(s) of recyclable material to at least one virtual material account.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein gathering the end product data and / or the component data includes determining decentral identifier(s) associated with the end products, components thereof and / or production waste based on the provided data related to the end products or the components thereof and gathering the end product data and / or component data from decentral data providing network node(s) associated with said end product data and / or component data using at least part of the determined decentral identifiers.

3. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the end product data includes data associated with the material configuration of the end product and / or wherein the composition data includes data associated with the material configuration of the component and / or the production waste.

4. The method of any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the least one aggregation rule is configured to aggregate gathered data or amounts or recyclable material based on at least one predefined criteria.

5. The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the at least one transformation rule is configured to transform aggregated data or gathered data into an amount of recyclable material.

6. The method of any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein allocating the determined amount of recyclable material to at least one virtual material account includes selecting at least one virtual material account based on at least one allocation rule specifying the allocation of amounts of recyclable material(s) to virtual balancing account(s).

7. The method of any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the recyclable material is a recyclable metal obtained by recycling batteries or parts thereof and / or by recycling production waste generated during the production of the battery or parts thereof.

8. An apparatus for allocating amount(s) of a recyclable material associated with a material owner to virtual material account(s), the apparatus comprising: a data providing interface configured to provide data related to the material owner and data related to end products or components thereof containing the recyclable material; a decentral network interface configured to gather - based on the provided data - end product data and / or component data via a decentral network; a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account for balancing amount(s) of recyclable material(s); a material crediting system configured to• aggregate the gathered data by applying at least one aggregation rule to the gathered data,• determine the amount(s) of recyclable material by applying at least one transformation rule to the aggregated data, and• allocate via an accounting transaction the determined amount of recyclable material to at least one of the provided virtual material accounts.

9. A method for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to recyclable material(s) associated with a material owner to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the method comprising: providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier; providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s); determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of the recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s); optionally providing the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the chemical product is produced from one or more input material(s) by a chemical production and at least a part of the input material(s) is / are related to the recyclable material associated with the material owner.

11. The method of claim 9 or 10, wherein the data associated with the produced chemical product includes input material data associated with input material(s) used to produce the chemical product.

12. The method of any one of claims 9 to 11 , wherein determining virtual material account(s) includes determining potentially accessible virtual material account(s) based on input material(s) used to produce the chemical product, determining for each potentially accessible virtual material account the available amount of recyclable material stored within said virtual material account, selecting accessible virtual material account(s) based on the available amount of recyclable material and optionally an input material amount associated with the input material(s).

13. The method of any one of claims 9 to 12, wherein data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) includes a recycled content associated with the produced chemical product.

14. An apparatus for assigning or attributing at least one environmental attribute related to recyclable material(s) associated with a material owner to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is produced by a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the apparatus comprising: a data providing interface configured to provide data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier; a rule provider configured to provide at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s); a material accounting system configured to provide at least one virtual material account storing amount(s) of recyclable material(s); a material debiting system configured to• determine via the allocation rule(s) provided virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s), and• allocate - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s); optionally a decentral network interface configured to provide the generated chemical product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the chemical product passport.

15. A method for managing and / or controlling assignment of environmental attributes related to recyclable material(s) to a produced chemical product, wherein the chemical product is producedby a chemical production at least in part from one or more input material(s) related to the recyclable material(s), the method comprising: allocating amount(s) of recyclable material(s) to at least one virtual material account according to the method of any one of claims 1 to 7 or by the apparatus of claim 8; - providing data associated with the produced chemical product including a chemical product identifier; providing at least one allocation rule for allocating amounts of recyclable materials to chemical product(s); determining via the allocation rule(s) virtual material accounts(s) storing amounts of the recyclable material(s); allocating - based on the provided data associated with the chemical product and the allocation rule(s) - amount(s) of recyclable material(s) stored in the determined virtual material account(s) to the chemical product identifier by generating - based on the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s) - a chemical product passport associated with the chemical product, said chemical product passport including the chemical product identifier and data related to the allocated amount(s) of recyclable material(s); optionally providing the generated product passport for access via a decentral network under control of the data owner of the product passport.

Images