Enhancing Sustainability through Battery Reverse Supply Chain using Blockchain

The world mostly runs on non-renewable fossil fuels, be it electricity or commuting, and this is the major cause of increasing carbon emissions and global warming. This affects everyone equally, and that is why the world is shifting towards electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy (RE) generation. EVs are powered by lithium-ion batteries, unlike the existing petrol- and diesel-based vehicles. In RE systems, lead-acid batteries are used for energy storage applications. With the increasing adoption of green energy and green commuting, the demand for batteries is rising rapidly, and so is the pollution due to their unsafe disposal. These batteries have a limited life, and once the end-of-life (EOL) is reached, they cannot be used anymore without technological interventions and need to be recycled. There are many challenges pertaining to the existing battery recycling process, like transportation costs, lack of transparency, low trustworthiness, lack of consumer participation, etc. There-fore, it is important to establish secure and transparent reverse logistics and reverse supply chain for the recycling and reuse of batteries. This paper explores a blockchain-based reverse supply chain for the battery recycling process to further enhance the sustainability of EVs and RE.