Internet of Materials – A concept for circular material traceability

There are many different approaches to establishing traceability of material items and products. However, known efforts consider unconnected parts or perspectives of material traceability, without aiming at a full picture. This has led to the development of many incompatible solutions. The traceability of different materials gets lost along value chains when materials are mixed together in warehouses or process industry. Highly identifiable products from industrial serial production are given model and serial numbers, which are only identifiable through their manufacturer. Even though sources of materials may be the same for different manufacturers, the lack of traceability harmonization between sectors makes identifying materials difficult to sort for recycling at the end of life. Supply chains of individual organizations are optimized for the individual company's needs. Solutions are also built on individual technologies that are suitable for limited types of traceability. Much effort is still needed to practically solve the incompatibilities, mismatches and gaps between the different existing and proposed solutions. This research introduces the Internet of Materials (IoM) concept, which is largely based on existing international standards as its components. The article lays out the feasibility of IoM as a harmonizing concept and also presents some of its challenges. Because of similarities in name and some application areas, the research also compares and positions IoM to the Internet of Things (IoT) concept. The paper concludes with implications of the IoM concept for analyzing and designing circular material traceability for sustainability transitions.