Hot Topic: Blockchain and digital twins
The chemical industry as an important driver
Tamper-proof blockchain technology will transform processes in the chemical industry in the future. The chemical industry, as part of almost all product value chains, is working on autonomous supply chains, a traceable circular economy and on fulfilling the requirements of supply chain laws. Therefore, specialty chemicals companies like Evonik could become an important driver of the blockchain technology.
The digital twin plays a key role in this context: it reflects properties of a physical object, a process, or intellectual property in data which is stored on a blockchain. What happens to the original also happens to the digital twin.
Evonik is working inter alia on providing products and packaging units with a digital identity using tracers and ID tags. A tracer as a component of a manufactured material providing a kind of “fingerprint”. The “fingerprint” and its digital twin are stored in the blockchain, and by comparing the two, authenticity can be verified at any time. An ID tag, on the other hand, is a label that is attached to the packaging unit (rather than embedded in the product itself), to uniquely identify it. The digitally activated ID tag links the physical object to its digital twin. These approaches can also enable end consumers to trace the origin of goods beyond any doubts.
Evonik is not only developing these methods for its own use but is also inviting customers and suppliers to learn about and test these new technologies together. As this blockchain application transforms trust into knowledge and knowledge into certainty.