EP4666201A1

EP4666201A1 - Tire passport

Info

Publication number: EP4666201A1
Application number: EP23735632.4A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Michael-georg SCHMIDT; Timo Wendling; Stefan Hannemann; Claudia Elena HERRERA GARCIA; Nicole Graf; Thorsten Dikmann; Holger Kai Peter JELICH
Original assignee: BASF SE
Current assignee: BASF SE
Priority date: 2023-02-14
Filing date: 2023-06-21
Publication date: 2025-12-24
Also published as: WO2024170105A1; JP2026506024A; CN120677478A

Abstract

Disclosed is an apparatus for generating a tire passport, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing nodes; and one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more computing nodes, cause the apparatus to perform the following steps: - receiving a request to provide a decentral identifier associated with tire data and a data owner, - in response to the request, providing the decentral identifier and generating the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data; - providing the tire passport for access by a data consuming service under control or controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner.

Description

TIRE PASSPORT

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to the field of sustainability, in particular to the field of handling used tires. The present disclosure relates to an apparatus for generating a tire passport, a computer-implemented method for generating a tire passport, a method for using a tire passport and a computer program element.

TECHNICAL BACKGROUND

Tires for vehicles are designed to withstand a number of strains during their use, hence they comprise a highly complex material mix. Owing to the strains during use, tires for vehicles may only be used for a limited amount of time. Tires are hence disposed regularly cumulating to considerable amounts of tire waste. The re-use rate of tires is still low since they are made of different materials that have to be separated.

To re-use waste tires, different methods such as regrooving, retreading or recycling may be applied. Recycling allows the recovery of rubber and fillers. Such recycled materials may be used to produce new tires or other products. This way tire material can be used multiple times and circularity of material flows may be achieved. To improve the handling of used tires, such as the re-use and recycling of used tires, standardized information on used tire to be re-used or recycled is required. Such data may be provided, for example, via the International Material Data System (IMDS) used in automotive supply chains. Such system allows to collect data along the entire automotive supply chain. Participants in the automotive supply chain register with the IMDS service and maintain product entries in the central database as provided and hosted by a third-party provider.

Systems like IMDS are static regarding data, prone to error and cumbersome in handling or maintenance. Owing to the highly specific and centralized setup of such systems, exchange and sharing of tire data is laborious. Hence there is a need to simplify tire data exchange and sharing to improve re-use and recycling rates of used tires.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one aspect an apparatus for generating a tire passport associated with a tire is disclosed, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing nodes; and one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more computing nodes, cause the apparatus to perform the following steps: receive a request to provide a decentral identifier associated with a data owner and tire data associated with the tire, in response to the request, generate the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data, provide the tire passport for access by a data consuming service under control or controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner.

In one aspect an apparatus for generating a tire passport associated with a tire is disclosed, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing nodes; and one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more computing nodes, cause the apparatus to perform the following steps: receive a request to provide a decentral identifier associated with a data owner and at least a part of tire data associated with the tire, in response to the request, generate the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the at least part of the tire data, provide the tire passport for access by a data consuming service under control or controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner.

In one aspect an apparatus for generating a tire passport associated with a tire is disclosed, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing nodes; and one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more computing nodes, cause the apparatus to perform the following steps: provide a decentral identifier associated with a data owner and tire data associated with the tire, generate the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data, provide the tire passport for access by a data consuming service controlled by a data providing service associated with a data owner.

In one aspect disclosed is an apparatus for generating a tire passport associated with a tire, particularly including a decentral identifier associated with tire data and data related to the tire data associated with the tire, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing nodes; and one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more computing nodes, cause the apparatus to perform the following steps: receive a request to provide a decentral identifier associated with a data owner tire data associated with the tire; in response to the request, provide the decentral identifier and generate the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data; provide the tire passport for access by the data consuming service controlled by or under control by a data providing service associated with the data owner, particularly wherein the data providing service comprises computer-executable instructions for providing and/or processing tire data associated with the data owner e.g. for accessing and/or processing by the data consuming service.

In one aspect disclosed is an apparatus for generating a tire passport associated with a tire, particularly including a decentral identifier associated with tire data and data related to the tire data associated with the tire, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing nodes; and one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more computing nodes, cause the apparatus to perform the following steps: provide a decentral identifier associated with a data owner and the tire data associated with the tire ; generate the tire including the decentral identifier and the data related to the tire data; provide the tire passport for access by the data consuming service controlled by or under control by a data providing service associated with the data owner, particularly wherein the data providing service comprises computer-executable instructions for providing and/or processing tire data associated with the data owner e.g. for accessing and/or processing by the data consuming service.

In another aspect a computer-implemented method for generating a tire passport associated with the tire is disclosed, the method comprising the steps: receiving a request to provide a decentral identifier associated with a data owner and tire data associated with the tire, in response to the request, generating the tire including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data, providing the tire passport for access by a data consuming service controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner.

In another aspect a computer-implemented method for generating a tire passport associated with a tire is disclosed, the method comprising the steps: providing a decentral identifier associated with a data owner and tire data associated with the tire, generating the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data, providing the tire passport for access by a data consuming service controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner.

In yet another aspect a computer-implemented method for using a tire passport, preferably to determine properties and/or treatment of the tire associated with the tire passport, is disclosed, the method comprising the steps: receiving a request to access the tire data associated with a decentral identifier of the tire passport as generated according to the methods disclosed herein or by the apparatuses disclosed herein, optionally authenticating and/or authorizing the request to access the tire data, based on optionally the authentication and/or authorization, providing access to the tire data associated with the decentral identifier of the tire passport.

In yet another aspect a computer-implemented method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component thereof is disclosed, the method comprising the steps of: collecting tire data of the tire or component(s) thereof, in particular tire data relating to properties critical for re-use and/or recycling of the tire or a component thereof, in relation to production of the tire or the component thereof, wherein the collected tire data includes data associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the tire or the component thereof; optionally collecting tire data, in particular tire data relating to properties critical for re-use and/or recycling of the tire or a component thereof, in relation to the use of the tire; providing one or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or the component(s) thereof and one or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the one or more production input(s); generating at least one data set including at least a part of the collected tire data and optionally a relationship data set specifying a relationship between the provided decentral identifiers; generating one or more access element(s) including the one or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or the component(s) thereof and access data related to at least one of the generated data set and optionally one or more relationship access element(s) including the one or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or the component(s) thereof and access data related to the generated relationship data set; providing the one or more access element(s) to a decentral network for access to the data set(s) by one or more data consuming network node(s) of the decentral network under control of a data providing network node. In yet another aspect an apparatus for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for reuse and/or recycling of a tire or a component thereof is disclosed, the apparatus comprising: a data collection interface configured to o collect tire data of the tire or component(s) thereof, in particular tire data relating to properties critical for re-use and/or recycling of the tire or a component thereof, in relation to production of the tire or the component thereof, wherein the collected tire data includes data associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the tire or the component thereof and o optionally collect tire data, in particular tire data relating to properties critical for reuse and/or recycling of the tire or a component thereof, in relation to the use of the tire; a decentral identifier provider interface configured to provide one or more decentral identifiers) associated with the tire or the component(s) thereof and one or more decentral identifiers) associated with the one or more production input(s); a data set generator configured to generate at least one data set including at least a part of the collected tire data and optionally a relationship data set specifying a relationship between the provided decentral identifiers an access element generator configured to generate one or more access element(s) including the one or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or the component(s) thereof and access data related to at least one of the generated data set and optionally one or more relationship access element(s) including the one or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or the component(s) thereof and access data related to the generated relationship data set; a decentral network interface configured to provide the one or more access element(s) to a decentral network for access to the data set(s) by one or more data consuming network node(s) of the decentral network under control of a data providing network node.

In yet another aspect a computer-implemented method for accessing at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire is disclosed, the method comprising the steps: providing a decentral identifier associated with the tire or a component thereof to be recycled or re-used; gathering based on one or more access element(s) generated and/or provided according to the methods or by the apparatuses disclosed herein, access data related to the decentral identifier associated with the tire or the component thereof, in particular recursively gathering access data per production stage of the tire production chain and/or the tire use chain, wherein the recursive gathering is based on one or more relationship data set(s) provided by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain; requesting - based on the gathered access data - access to tire data from one or more participants of the tire production chain and/or tire use chain, in particular recursively requesting - based on the gathered access data - access to tire data from one or more participants), in particular per participant, of the tire production chain and/or tire use chain.

In yet another aspect an apparatus for accessing at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire is disclosed, the apparatus comprising: an identifier providing interface configured to provide a decentral identifier associated with the tire or a component thereof to be recycled or re-used; an access data retriever configured to gather - based on one or more access element(s) generated and/or provided according to the methods or by the apparatuses disclosed herein - access data related to the decentral identifier associated with the tire or the component thereof, in particular recursively gathering access data per production stage of the tire production chain and/or the tire use chain, wherein the recursive gathering is based on one or more relationship data set(s) provided by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain; an access requestor configured to request - based on the gathered access data - access to tire data from one or more participants of the tire production chain and/or tire use chain, in particular recursively requesting - based on the gathered access data - access to tire data from one or more participant(s), in particular per participant, of the tire production chain and/or tire use chain.

Use of the tire passport generated for a tire according to the methods or by the apparatuses lined out herein to determine properties and/or treatment of the tire associated with the tire passport.

In yet another aspect a tire associated with a tire passport is disclosed, wherein the tire passport including a decentral identifier and data related to the tire data is generated for the tire according to the methods or by the apparatuses lined out herein.

In yet another aspect a system including a tire associated with a tire passport is disclosed, wherein the tire passport including a decentral identifier and data related to the tire data is generated for the tire according to the methods or by the apparatuses lined out herein. In yet another aspect a tire passport including a decentral identifier and data related to the tire data is disclosed, wherein the tire passport is generated for the tire according to the methods or by the apparatuses lined out herein.

In yet another aspect 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) is configured to carry out the steps of any of the methods or by the apparatus disclosed herein is disclosed.

Any disclosure and embodiments described herein relate to the methods, the apparatuses, the systems, the tires, the tire passports, the uses, and the computer elements lined out above or below and vice versa. The benefits provided by any of the embodiments and examples equally apply to all other embodiments and examples.

Embodiments

The methods, apparatuses, systems, tires, tire passports, uses, and the computer elements disclosed herein provide an efficient, secure and robust way for sharing or exchanging tire data across different participant nodes in the tire value chain, hence allowing to improve re-use and/or recycling rates of used tires, for example by using the tire data and/or data related to the production of the tire or a component thereof and/or data related to the use of the tire or a component thereof, to determine the appropriate treatment of used tires. The appropriate treatment may be determined based on accessing. In particular, a) by attaching a decentral identifier to a data owner and associated tire data and b) by providing access by a data consuming service controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner, tire data can be securely exchanged and shared under the sovereignty of the data owner. The data owner may thus control access by participant nodes or data consuming services of the decentral network to the tire data. This allows for simplified and customizable data sharing or exchange throughout the tire ecosystem including tire manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers, tire distributors, tire workshops, vehicle owners, vehicle proprietors, vehicle lessors, tire collectors, tire retreaders and tire recyclers. This way, a more reliable and efficient handling of tires and end-of-life tires by upstream participants of the tire ecosystem can be achieved, while the tire data remains in the ownership of the respective data owner. By combining the data related to tires directly with the decentral identifier and optionally one or more authentication mechanisms more reliable and secure data sharing and exchange can be provided. By further including one or more authorization mechanisms, the data sharing or exchange can be conducted in a more flexible manner with multiple data consuming services from different participants of the tire ecosystem accessing the tire data. In addition, by making data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof and/or data related to the use of the tire, e.g. property data, accessible across participant(s) of the tire ecosystem, more efficient and reliable monitoring of properties critical for recycling and/or re-use can be ensured through accessing such data in a controlled and targeted manner. The monitoring concept allows for reliable monitoring of properties critical for recycling and/or re-use of tires.

In particular, by collecting property data at the production stage of the tire or the component thereof and/or by collecting property data during use of the tire and providing access to such data via access elements through a decentral network enables sharing of such property data between participants of the tire chain or loop. Further in particular, by using relationship data sets specifying relationships between production input(s) and output(s) per production step of the tire production chain and stored decentrally per participant of the tire chain or loop allows to recursively reconstruct the bill of materials only for those parts of the property data that is relevant to the re-use or recycling process. Further in particular, by allowing to provide relevant data only to selected participants, such as to recyclers and/or re-users, provides tire producers and further participants of the tire production chain with the required control over sensitive tire information. Further in particular, by providing such data relevant to properties critical for recycling and/or re-use allows for more targeted monitoring of such properties and hence determination of appropriate re-use and/or recycling processes allowing to increase re-use and/or recycling of used tires.

By providing a relationship access element associated with a decentral identifier and access data per stage of the production chain, the depth in the properties or the property data available via the decentral network can be enhanced without disclosing the full bill of materials. Through the relationship access element, the respective input(s) with the output(s) are accessible in a controlled and targeted manner depending on the participant of the production and/or recycling chain and/or re-use chain. This way, the re-use and/or recycling process can be determined that matches the property data accessed via the decentral network. This also allows to ensure a higher quality of the tire resulting from a retreading and/or recycling operation. The higher recy- clate quality allows to feed such recyclate into the chemical production chain since a negative impact during production of chemical products on the production equipment due to critical substances present within the recyclate can be avoided.

In the following, embodiments of the present disclosure will be outlined by ways of examples. It is to be understood that the present disclosure is not limited to said embodiments and/or examples. In one embodiment, the decentral identifier may comprise any unique identifier uniquely associated with the data owner and tire data. The decentral identifier may comprise any unique identifier uniquely associated with the producer of the tire or a component thereof and the tire or the component thereof. The decentral identifier may include one or more Universally Unique Identifiers) (UUID(s)) and/or Digital Identifier(s) (DID(s)). The decentral identifier may be associated with a digital twin of the tire, the digital twin including the tire data. The decentral identifier may be associated with the physical entity of the tire or a component thereof. Any combination of UUID(s) and DID(s) may be possible. The decentral identifier may be issued by a central or decentral identity issuer. The decentral identifier may be generated by the data owner or on behalf of the data owner. The decentral identifier may be generated by the producer of the tire or the component thereof or on behalf of the producer of the tire or the component thereof. The decentral identifier may include one or more identifier(s) used in the decentral network and allowing for data exchange via the decentral network. Data exchange may include discovery of the decentral identifier for participant nodes of the decentral network, authentication of participant nodes of the decentral network and/or authorization of data transfers via a peer-to-peer communication between participant nodes of the decentral network. The decentral identifier may be associated with any participant of the tire ecosystem including raw material supplier, intermediate products manufacturer, tire manufacturer, vehicle manufacturers, tire distributors, tire workshops, vehicle owners, vehicle proprietors, vehicle lessors, tire collectors and tire recyclers. The decentral identifier may be associated with a machine, a system, or a device used for producing the tire and recycling of the tire, or a collection of such machine(s), device(s) and/or system(s). An identifier element may be associated with or connected to the tire or the component thereof. The identifier element may be associated with or connected to the tire or the component thereof at least on production of the tire or component thereof. Through the identifier element the digital twin of the tire or the component thereof may be accessible through the decentral network. The identifier element may uniquely relate to the tire or the component thereof. The identifier element may uniquely relate to the decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or the component thereof. The decentral identifier(s) may uniquely relate to the tire or component. This way tire data or property data may be provided per tire /component or for individual tire /components. The decentral identifier may be a digital identifier of or for the decentral network. The decentral identifier may be a digital identifier provided to the decentral network and participant nodes of the decentral network. Such decentral identifier may hence signify physical entities of tires or components thereof in the decentral network and participant nodes may be able to interpret the relation of the decentral identifier to the physical entities of tires or components thereof. The decentral identifier may include authentication information. Via the decentral identifier and its unique association with the data owner and tire data, access to the tire data may be controlled by the data owner. Via the decentral identifier and its unique association with the data owner and property data, access to the property data may be controlled by the data owner. 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 in implementation as controlled by the data owner.

In an embodiment, the tire passport may further include the public key of the data owner and/or a tire identifier associated with the tire. The tire identifier may include a batch number, a tire name, a tire ID, a part number, a LOT number or a combination thereof. The LOT number may be assigned to the tire on or after production. The tire identifier allows to uniquely identify the physical entity of the respective tire, thus linking all data associated with said identifier, e.g. the tire data and the decentral identifier, to the physical entity of the tire.

In an embodiment, the tire may be a vehicle tire. A vehicle may be an automobile such as a car, a van, a minivan, a bus, a SUV (sports utility vehicle); a truck; a lorry, a semitruck; a tractor; a motorcycle; a trailer; an ATV (all-terrain vehicle); a pickup truck; a heavy duty mover, such as bulldozer, mobile crane and earth mover; an airplanes; and other modes of transport that are commonly equipped with one or more tires. The tire may be produced from chemical products. The chemical product may be a chemical raw material or an intermediate chemical product. Chemical raw materials may include water glass, and monomers used to produce rubber, such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, styrene and polyisobutene. Intermediate chemical products may include rubber, such as natural rubber and/or synthetic rubber, oil, steel, fillers (such as carbon black and silica), polymers, tackifiers, antioxidants, accelerators and antiozonants. The tire may comprise an inner liner of synthetic rubber. The tire may comprise a layer above the inner liner (also called ply) comprising thin fire wires or cable incorporated in rubber. The tire may comprise a layer above the ply (also called casing ply) comprising fine steel cables incorporated in rubber. The tire may comprise a layer above the casing ply (also called cap ply) comprising reinforced nylon-based cables embedded in a layer of rubber. The tire may comprise a bead wire at the tire’s edge comprising or consisting of steel. The tire may comprise a rubber tread and a rubber sidewall. The rubber tread may comprise a profile. The tire may be produced through a production including one or more production steps. The tire may be used through the lifecycle of the tire. The lifetime of the tire may be extended by reuse processes. Reuse may include retreading or regrooving to extend the life of the tire. Regrooving may include cutting a second layer of tread into a used tire when the first layer is worn down due to the use of the tire. Retreading may include applying a new tread on the tire to extent its lifetime.

In an embodiment, the component may be a chemical component or a discrete component of the tire. In an embodiment, the tire data may be associated with the tire. The tire data may comprise data related to a property of the tire and/or data related to the use of the tire. Such property may be a static or a dynamic property. A static property may be a property constant over time, such as Ell label information, time of production, etc.. A dynamic property may be a property that changes over time, such as driven kilometers, age of the tire or weight of the tire. Data related to a property of the tire may include Ell label information, tire specifications (such as tire width, aspect ratio, construction, rim diameter, load index, speed rating, usage conditions), weight of the produced tire, raw materials used to produce the tire, production data of the tire, age of the tire and/or approved uses. Data related to the use of the tire may include driven kilometers, average life time determined from actual distance the tires is used and time the tire is used, type of vehicle the tire is attached to, manufacturer of the vehicle the tire is attached to, wear of the tire, current weight of the tire, data on the workshop having attached the tire, loss of microplastic into the environment, usage condition of the tire, intended use of the tire, repair data, re-use data and/or weather conditions the tire is used in. Intended uses may include long distance use, city traffic use and haulage service use. Data related to the use of the tire may be determined using data acquired during the use of the tire. For instance, the loss of microplastic into the environment may be determined from the weight of the new tire and the current weight of the used tire. In another instance, the tire data may relate to or include properties of the chemical produces) in association with the use of the chemical product(s) to produce the tire. The tire data may relate to tire identifier(s) associated with the tire, performance data associated with the chemical product(s) used to produce the tire, the use of chemical product(s) to produce the tire or combinations thereof. The tire data may include application properties of the tire produced with or from chemical product(s). The tire data may be generated or collected before, during or after production of the tire. The tire data may be collected before, during or after the lifecycle of the tire. The tire data may be generated by the any participant of the tire ecosystem, such as the chemical product supplier, the tire manufacturer, the vehicle manufacturer, the tire dealer, the user or owner or lessor of the vehicle the tire is attached to, tire warehouse operators, retreading companies, collection centers, return points and recycling facilities. The tire data may be associated with the produced tire. The tire data may be updated with data acquired during the use of the tire on vehicle(s). For example, sensors may capture real-time (or near real-time) data, such as data during use of the tire, from the physical tire and said data is used to update the tire data. Data captured during the use of the tire may be added to the tire data. The tire data may be associated with the produced vehicle. The tire data may be associated with properties of the chemical product(s) used to produce the tire or at least one property related to the use of the chemical product(s) used to produce the tire. Tire data may include chemical composition data, emission data, recyclate content, bio-based content and/or production data. The tire data may be stored in a data base of or associated with the data owner. The tire data may be stored in a data base accessible by the data owner.

In an embodiment, data relating to production of the tire or the component thereof may be collected at the production stage of the tire or the component thereof by the producer of the tire or the component thereof. Data relating to the production of the tire or the component thereof may be collected in relation to production of the tire or the component thereof. Data relating to production of the tire or the component thereof may be collected prior to, on, during or after production of the tire or the component thereof. Data relating to production of the tire or the component thereof may be collected per production stage of the tire or the component thereof. Production stage may include any production step in the material chain of the tire. For example, the production stage may include the production of monomers or rubber. Further for example, the production stage may include the production of steel. Further for example, the production stage may include the production of nylon, reinforced nylon and/or polyester used as liner. Further for example, the production stage may include the production using the monomer to produce rubber. Further for example, the production may include the production using the rubber, the steel, the nylon, reinforced nylon or polyester to produce the tire or a component thereof.

In an embodiment, recyclate content data and/or bio-based content data may comprise any data related to the recyclate content or the bio-based content used for providing or manufacturing a physical entity of the tire. The recyclate content may include the content associated with a material, such as pyrolysis oil, obtained by chemically recycling waste material, such as tires or parts thereof and used for providing or manufacturing a physical entity of the tire.

In an embodiment, emission data may comprise any data related to environmental footprint. The environmental footprint may refer to a tire and its associated environmental footprint. The environmental footprint may be tire specific. For instance, the environmental footprint may relate to a tire, a company producing the tire, a process such as a tire manufacturing process, a raw material or basic substance or a chemical product used to produce the tire. Emission data may include data relating to the carbon footprint of the tire or a Product Carbon Footprint (PCF). Emission data may include data relating to greenhouse gas emissions e.g. released in production of the tire. Emission data may include data related to greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions may include emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) emission, methane (CH₄) emission, nitrous oxide (N2O) emission, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) emission, perfluorocarbons (PFCs) emission, sulphurhexafluoride (SF₆) emission, nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃) emission, combinations thereof and additional emissions. Emission data may include data related to greenhouse gas emissions of an entities or companies own operations (production, power plants and waste incineration). Scope 2 may comprise emissions from energy production which is sourced externally. Scope 3 may comprise all other emissions along the tire value chain. Specifically, this may include the greenhouse gas emissions of materials used to produce the tire.

Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) may sum up greenhouse gas emissions and removals from the consecutive and interlinked process steps related to a particular tire. Cradle-to-gate PCF may sum up greenhouse gas emissions based on selected process steps: e.g. from the extraction of resources up to the factory gate where the tire leaves the company. Such PCFs may be called partial PCFs. In order to achieve such summation, each company providing a tire may provide the scope 1 and scope 2 contributions to the PCF for each of its tires.

In an embodiment, production data may comprise any data related to the production of a tire. Production data may comprise any data related to the production of a tire component. Production data may include tire production data from the production of the tire. Production data may include component production data from the production of the tire component. Production data may include monitoring and/or control data associated with the production of the tire. Production data may include monitoring and/or control data associated with the production of the tire component. Production data may include measurement data related to a quality of the tire. Production data may include measurement data related to a quality of the tire component.

In an embodiment, property data may relate to one property or more properties of the tire or the component thereof or the used tire. The properties may relate to or be associated with or correspond to the tire data previously mentioned. Property data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof may correspond to the production data previously mentioned. Property data related to the use of the tire may correspond to tire data collect during the lifetime of the tire, as previously mentioned.

In an embodiment, the data owner may comprise any entity generating tire data or a part thereof. The data generating node may be coupled to the entity owning tires for which tire data is generated. The data generating node may be coupled to the entity producing tires for which tire data is generated. The data generating node may be coupled to the entity producing or owning the vehicle to which the tire is attached to. The tire data may be generated by a third-party entity on behalf of the entity owning tires for which tire data is generated. The tire data may be generated by a third-party entity on behalf of the entity producing tires for which tire data is generated. The data owner may be the tire producer. The data owner may be the vehicle producer. The data owner may be the vehicle owner. The tire data or the part thereof may be accessible for the data owner. The data owner may hence directly or indirectly own the tire data or the part thereof. The tire data or the part thereof may be stored in a data base of or associated with the data owner. The tire data or the part thereof may be stored in a data base accessible by the data owner. The tire data or the part thereof may be stored in a data base of or under control by the data owner. The tire data or the part thereof may be associated with the data owner. The data owner may be the owner of the tire data or the part thereof. In this sense, the data owner is to be construed broadly as the entity having access to the tire data or the part thereof and controlling access by data consuming services of the decentral network to the tire data or the part thereof. Via the decentral identifier and its unique association with the data owner and tire data or a part thereof, access to the tire data or a part thereof may be controlled by the data owner via the data providing service.

In an embodiment, tire production chain may include any participant participating in the production of the tire or a component thereof. Such production may relate to production processes. The tire production chain may include the production chain. The tire use chain may include any participant participating in the use of the tire, such as the vehicle manufacturer and the vehicle user.

In an embodiment, tire use chain may include any participant participating in the use of the tire. Such use may relate to the manufacturing of products containing the tire, such as vehicles. Such use may relate to recycling and/or re-use processes associated with used tires. Such use may be related to manufacturing of products and/or recycling and/or re-use processes.

Critical property or properties(s) for recycling and/or re-use may be a property or properties of the tire. The critical property or properties may impede the recycling and/or re-use processes. For instance, the critical property or properties may impede the quality of the recyclate produced by a recycling process performed on the waste or end of life tire. In another instance, the critical property or properties may hamper the re-use of a used tire, e.g. the used tire may not be reused by needs to be recycled or disposed or incinerated. In yet another instance, the critical property or properties may hamper the recycling of the waste or end of life tire, such that the waste tire needs to be disposed or incarnated. Such properties may relate to the re-use process. For instance, re-treading operation(s) may not be allowed for certain types of tires and/or may only be repeated on a single tire for a limited number of times. Such property may relate to substances critical for recycling and/or re-use present within the tire. Critical substance(s) for recycling may impede the quality of recyclate produced by the recycling process. Critical substance^) for recycling may relate to the recycling process. Critical substance(s) for recycling may relate to the use of the recyclate. Critical substance(s) for recycling may relate to the recycling process and the use of the recyclate. Critical substance(s) for re-use may hamper the reuse. Critical substances for re-use may relate to the re-use process. The critical substance(s) for recycling and/or re-use may include substances specific for one or more recycling processes) and/or one or more re-use processes. The critical substance(s) for recycling may relate to a chemical or mechanical recycling process. The critical substance(s) for recycling may relate to a specific thermal recycling process, e.g. a thermal recycling process for producing pyrolysis oil. The critical substance(s) for recycling may include substances specific for one or more uses of the recyclate produced by the recycling process. The critical substance(s) for recycling may relate to a chemical recycling process producing a recyclate for a petrochemical process. The petrochemical process may include at least one process configured to break saturated hydrocarbons at least partially into unsaturated hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbon recyclate may be produced by pyrolysis. Critical substances for recycling may include sulfur, halogens, oxygen, phosphorus, metals and inorganics such as aluminum, antinomy, barium, calcium chromium, copper, iron, potassium, sodium, lead, silicon, titanium, zinc, arsine, mercury, nickel, vanadium, or combinations thereof.

The tire or component(s) thereof may be associated with the access element for the decentral network, which may include access data associated with at last one generated data set. The access element may be associated with one or more data set(s) including at least a part of the collected tire data. The access element may be associated with one or more relationship data set(s) specifying a relationship between the tire or the component thereof and production inputs) used to produce the tire or the component thereof. The data set(s) may be provided to the decentral network via the respective access element. The data set(s) may be provided by a decentral network node associated with a dedicated storage of the producer of the tire or the component thereof. The access data may include a representation for accessing the data set. The access element may further include authentication information. The access data may include a locator or pointer to a dedicated storage address associated with the producer of the tire or the component thereof. The access data may include a locator or pointer locating or pointing to the dedicated storage associated with the production participant of the production chain producing the tire or component thereof and storing the tire data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof. The access data may include one or more digital link(s) pointing to tire data, such as tire data relating to properties critical for re-use and/or recycling of the tire or a component thereof. The digital representation(s) may include a locator or pointer, such as am url or uri, to a dedicated storage address associated with the production participant of the production chain producing the tire or component thereof and storing the tire data related to the production of the plastic article or the component thereof. In an embodiment, 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 tire ecosystem, particularly a tire loop. 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 the decentral identifier. The one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with the decentral identifier may be provided to decentral network node(s). The one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with the 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. The one or more decentral identifier(s) may be uniquely associated with a physical entity of the produced tire or a component thereof. 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 one or more data set(s). The one or more authorization mechanisms may include authorization rules determining if access to the one or more data set(s) is granted. The one or more authorization mechanisms may be associated with the data providing network node associated with the producer of the tire or the component. The one or more authorization mechanisms may be provided per production stage or per producer in the tire production chain.

In an embodiment, the data consuming service may comprise computer-executable instructions for accessing and/or processing data, such as tire data, associated with the data owner. Data consuming services or 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). The data consuming network node may be associated with a participant of the recycling chain or re-use chain of the tire or the component thereof, such as the sorter or recycler of the tire or the component thereof or the re-treader of a used tire. The data generated by the producer of the tire or the component thereof per production stage may be accessed by the data consuming network node(s) upon authentication and/or authorization.

In embodiment, recycling may refer to any recovery operation by which waste tires, such as end of life tires (e.g. any tires which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard) are reprocessed into products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes. Recycling may include sorting, collecting, mechanically recycling, chemically recycling, solvent-based recycling or any intermediate processing steps like separation or purification.

In an embodiment, re-use may refer to any operation by which a reusable tire is used again for the same purpose for which it was conceived. Re-use may include preparing the tire for re-use, for example by retreading. Re-use may include collecting, sorting and retreading.

In an embodiment, the data providing service may comprise computer-executable instructions for providing and/or processing data, such as tire data and/or property data, associated with the data owner for accessing and/or processing by a data consuming service. Data providing services or 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 providing network node may be associated with a participant of the production chain of the tire or the component thereof, such as the producer of the tire or the component thereof. The data generated by the producer of the tire or the component thereof per production stage may be provided by the data providing network node to the decentral network, in particular for access by data consuming network node(s). The access to the data may be under control of the data providing network node. The data providing network node may be configured to authenticate the data consuming network node and/or to authorize access to the tire data by the data consuming network node.

In an embodiment, physical entity may relate to the physical embodiment of a tire. Physical entity may relate to the physical embodiment of a tire component.

In an embodiment, processor may refer to a circuitry configured to perform basic operations of a computer or system, and/or, generally, to a device which is configured for performing calculations or logic operations. In particular, the processor, or computer processor may be configured for processing basic instructions that drive the computer or system. It may be a semi-conductor based processor, a quantum processor, or any other type of processor configures for processing instructions. As an example, the processor may be or may comprise a Central Processing Unit ("CPU"). The processor may be a (“GPU”) graphics processing unit, (“TPU”) tensor processing unit, ("CISC") Complex Instruction Set Computing microprocessor, Reduced Instruction Set Computing ("RISC") microprocessor, Very Long Instruction Word ("VLIW') microprocessor, or a processor implementing other instruction sets or processors implementing a combination of instruction sets. The processing means may also be one or more special-purpose processing devices such as an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit ("ASIC"), a Field Programmable Gate Array ("FPGA"), a Complex Programmable Logic Device ("CPLD"), a Digital Signal Processor ("DSP"), a network processor, or the like. The methods, systems and devices described herein may be implemented as software in a DSP, in a micro-controller, or in any other side-processor or as hardware circuit within an ASIC, CPLD, or FPGA. It is to be understood that the term processor may also refer to one or more processing devices, such as a distributed system of processing devices located across multiple computer systems (e.g., cloud computing), and is not limited to a single device unless otherwise specified. The processor may be seen as a subpart of a processor wherein this subpart is executing the methods disclosed herein in form of a thread, a container and/or a virtual machine.

In an embodiment, a computing node may refer to 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. Computing nodes may, for example, be handheld devices, production facilities, sensors, monitoring systems, control systems, appliances, laptop computers, desktop computers, mainframes, data centers, or even devices that have not conventionally been considered a computing node, such as wearables (e.g., glasses, watches or the like). The memory may take any form and depends on the nature and form of the computing node.

In an embodiment, distributed computing may be implemented. Distributed computing may refer to any computing that utilizes multiple computing resources. Such use may be realized through virtualization of physical computing resources. One example of distributed computing is cloud computing. “Cloud computing” may refer a model for enabling on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services). When distributed, cloud computing environments may be distributed internationally within an organization and/or across multiple organizations. In an embodiment, distributed computed may be realized in a federated network.

In an embodiment, memory may refer to a physical system memory, which may be volatile, nonvolatile, or a combination thereof. The memory may include non-volatile mass storage such as physical storage media. The memory may be a computer-readable storage media such as RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM, or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage, or other magnetic storage devices, non-magnetic disk storage such as solid-state disk or any other physical and tangible storage medium which can be used to store desired program code means in the form of computer-executable instructions or data structures and which can be accessed by the computing system. Moreover, the memory may be a computer-readable media that carries computer- executable instructions (also called transmission media). Further, upon reaching various computing system components, program code means in the form of computer- executable instructions or data structures can be transferred automatically from transmission media to storage media (or vice versa). For example, computer-executable instructions or data structures received over a network or data link can be buffered in RAM within a network interface module (e.g., a “NIC”), and then eventually transferred to computing system RAM and/or to less volatile storage media at a computing system. Thus, it should be understood that storage media can be included in computing components that also (or even primarily) utilize transmission media.

In an embodiment a wireless communication protocol may be used. The wireless communication protocol may comprise any known network technology such as GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Services), EDGE (Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution), UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) /HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), LTE (Long Term Evolution) technologies using standards like 2G, 3G, 4G or 5G, The wireless communication protocol may further comprise a wireless local area network (WLAN), e.g. Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi).

In one embodiment, the request to provide the decentral identifier includes tire data and/or an owner or tire identifier associated with the data owner or the tire, respectively. The owner/tire identifier may be a string identifier associated with a data owner name or the tire name. The owner or tire identifier may be provided by a physical identifier provider, such as a bar code or a tag like a RFID tag, or a QR code. Such communication can be completed via ad hoc WIFI, BLE beacon, and/or NFC. The communications between wallet apps may be performed via any available communication channel, including but not limited to, web servers, ad hoc WIFI, BLE beacon signal, NFC, a barcode or QR code scanning, etc. Through the owner identifier the generated tire passport may be associated with the tire data owner by including the owner identifier. The owner identifier may be used for data transaction, such as sharing or exchanging of tire data. The owner identifier may be provided to a transaction manager. By providing the decentral identifier and the owner identifier of the data owner to a transaction manager or a data consuming service may simplify tracking of data transactions. Any transaction in the data ecosystem can e.g. be associated with the clear name of the data owner.

The request may further contain an authentication mechanism, such as the public-private key pair, and/or an identifier associated with a unit providing the decentral identifier. This allows to route the request to a specific decentral identifier provider. The authentication mechanisms may be retrieved from an authentication data storage, such as a vault, depending on the decentral identifier to be requested. The request to provide the decentral identifier may be associated with the tire production producing the tire. The request to provide the decentral identifier may be generated by a computing system, such as an operating system, of the tire production producing the tire. The request may be triggered at predefined occurrences. For instance, a detector may detect produced tires. Based on such recognition a computing apparatus, such as the operating system of the tire production, may generate the request to provide the decentral identifier. The generated request may be provided to a decentral identifier generator contained in an apparatus for generating the tire passport. In response to receiving said request, the decentral identifier generator may generate the decentral identifier and provide the generated decentral identifier.

In one embodiment, the decentral identifier is provided by one central node or by one or more decentral nodes. The decentral identifier as generated by one central node or by one or more decentral nodes may be provided to a node generating the tire passport and/or the digital access element and to at least one authentication data registry node, preferably accessible by the data providing service and/or the data consuming service. This enables customized data sharing or exchange with respect to the tire and the tire value chain the tire is used in. In particular, the data providing service and/or the data consuming service may customize data sharing or exchange protocols based on the anchoring of the decentral identifier to the tire data. The authentication data registry node may be a central registry node such as a central file system, a centrally managed distributed database, and/or a centrally managed peer-to-peer network. The central configuration allows for more control and standardization via a central node. The authentication data registry node may be a decentral registry such as a distributed ledger, a decentralized file system, a distributed database, and/or a peer-to-peer network. The decentral configuration allows for more efficient use of computing resources and strengthens control by the data owner. In addition, the decentral configuration is independent from centrally managed nodes and as such increases reliability and flexibility of the system.

In one embodiment, the generation of the tire passport includes providing the decentral identifier associated with a physical entity of a tire. In this context the physical entity may relate to a physical tire that is associated with the decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may be associated with the physical entity of the tire the tire data or tire passport is associated with. For instance, the decentral identifier may be associated with the physical entity of the tire. The decentral identifier may be associated with the tire via a physical identifier. The physical identifier may contain or correspond to an identifier element contained within or attached to the tire. The physical identifier may refer, for instance, to a tire identifier. The identifier element may comprise a passive or active element such as, for instance, a barcode, a QR code an embossed code or an RFID tag. The decentral identifier may be assigned to the physical identifier. Assigning may include generating a code having embedded the provided decentral identifier. Assigning may include correlating the provided decentral identifier with a physical identifier of the tire. For instance, an identifier element may be physically attached to or contained within the tire, wherein the identifier element may contain or correspond to the physical identifier. The determination, or acquisition, of the physical identifier may be viewed as triggering the providing of the decentral identifier, and possibly also a subsequent assignment between the physical identifier and the decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may be associated with the physical entity the tire will be supplied for and the tire data is associated with. For instance, the decentral identifier may be associated with the physical entity of the vehicle the tire is attached to. The decentral identifier may be associated with more than one physical entity the tire will be supplied for and the tire data is associated with. Associating the decentral identifier with different physical entity stages in the tire value chain allows for virtually tracking the tire in the tire value chain. This way the tire with its associated tire data may be tracked e.g. up to the end of the life or up to its recycling.

In one embodiment, the tire passport includes one or more authentication mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier and the tire data or a part thereof. The authentication mechanism may directly or indirectly relate to the decentral identifier and the data related to the tire data. In an example of indirect relation, the authentication mechanism may relate to a certificate mechanism. For example, on access request by the data consuming service, a dynamic access token may be generated based on the certificate mechanism. Such dynamic access token may be used to open peer-to-peer communication channel between a data consuming service and the data providing service associated with the tire passport. The authentication mechanism may include a token, such as private and public key infrastructure, a certificate mechanism or a biometric mechanism, such as fingerprints, face recognition or voice recognition or the like. One common public key certificate is for instance the X.509 certificate. Through the authentication mechanism, access by a data consuming service can be controlled in a secure manner and integrity of the data providing service can be ensured. This allows for more reliable, controlled and secure data exchange or sharing.

The one or more authentication mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier as generated by one central node or by one or more decentral nodes may be provided to a node generating the tire passport and to at least one decentral authentication data registry, preferably accessible by the data providing service and/or the data consuming service. The authentication data registry may be a central registry such as a central file system, a centrally managed distributed database, and/or a centrally managed peer-to-peer network. The central configuration allows for higher control and standardization via a central node. The authentication data registry may be a decentral registry such as a distributed ledger, a decentralized file system, a distributed database, and/or a peer-to-peer network. The decentral configuration allows for more efficient use of computing resources and strengthens control by the data owner.

In one embodiment, the tire passport is related to or includes one or more authorization mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier and the data related to the tire data. The authorization mechanisms may include authorization rule(s) including data transaction instructions or data transaction protocols, such as data usage policies, smart data contracts or mor complex data processing instructions associated with data providing and/or data consuming services. Through the authorization mechanism, access to tire data or a part thereof and usage of said data by a data consuming service can be controlled in a secure manner. The one or more authorization mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier as generated by one central node or by one or more decentral nodes may be provided to a node for generating or processing the tire passport, or for accessing the tire data or a part thereof. Additionally or alternatively, the one or more authorization mechanisms may be provided to at least one central or decentral authorization data registry, preferably accessible by the data providing service and/or the data consuming service.

In one embodiment, the one or more authorization mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier as generated by one or more decentral nodes may be provided to a node generating or processing the tire passport, and to at least one of a central file system, a centrally managed distributed database, a centrally managed peer-to-peer network, a distributed ledger, a decentralized file system, a distributed database, and/or a peer-to-peer network, preferably accessible by the data providing service and/or the data consuming service.

In one embodiment the data related to tire data includes tire data or parts thereof. In one embodiment the data related to tire data includes one or more digital representation(s) pointing to the tire data or parts thereof. In this context pointing means any network representation or address that is suitable for accessing the tire data or a part thereof. Hence, the digital representations may be regarded as access data and the tire passport may represent a digital data structure allowing third parties to access the tire data or a part thereof. The data related to tire data may include multiple digital representations pointing to distinct parts of the tire data. The data related to tire data may include multiple digital representations pointing to different parts of the tire data. Such different parts may overlap in some data points. The digital representation may include an access point to the tire data or a part thereof, a link to access tire data or a part thereof, an endpoint to access tire data or a part thereof or a service endpoint to access tire data or a part thereof. This way the tire data or a part thereof can be maintained and controlled by a data owner. Access can be provided via the representation of an access point, simplifying data verification, integrity checks or quality checks and access control, since not multiple distributed data points need to be checked and access controlled. The tire data or a part thereof may be stored in a data base of or associated with the data owner. The tire data or a part thereof may be stored in a data base accessible by the data owner. The digital representation pointing to tire data or parts thereof may be associated with or relate to any such data base associated with or accessible by the data owner. For enhanced security the digital representation pointing to tire data or parts thereof may indirectly relate to any such data base associated with or accessible by the data owner.

The digital representation(s) may be used - in combination with the decentral identifier - to access the tire data or parts thereof. For instance, the decentral identifier and corresponding digital representation(s) may be used by a data consuming service to request the tire data or a part thereof. The data related to the tire data my correspond to a DID document associated with or including the decentral identifier (e.g. DID), digital representation(s) pointing to the tire data or parts thereof and a public key. The DID document or parts thereof may be propagated to a distributed ledger. The DID document or parts thereof may be used to retrieve the digital representations) using the DID as described later on.

In one embodiment, the tire data or a part thereof may include a producer of the tire, tire identifiers), data on chemical materials used to produce the tire, labelling data, data on retreading, recyclate content of the tire, bio-based content of the tire, emission data of the tire, data on dangerous chemical materials contained within the tire, tire specification data, data related to a property of the tire, data related to the use of the tire, production data or a combination thereof. Data related to a property of the tire, data related to the use of the tire and production data may include the data mentioned previously. The tire data may be updated with data acquired during the use of the tire as previously described. Data acquired during the use of the tire may be added to already existing tire data, for instance using the decentral identifier.

In one embodiment, the tire data may include one or more class(es) of tire data. At least one class of tire data may be associated with or includes data required by regulation or regulatory data for tires, such as labelling information and/or chemical product safety data associated with hazards of chemical materials used to produce the tire. The chemical product safety data may by associated raw materials and chemical products used to produce the tire. At least one class of tire data may be associated with data related to the property of the tire. At least one class of tire data may be associated with data related to the use of the tire. At least one class of tire data may be associated with production data. At least one class of tire data may be associated with lifetime data. Such data may be updated accordingly to reflect the current status of the tire. For instance, the driven kilometers may be updated to reflect the amount of usage of the tire. Lifetime data may include the data related to the use of the tire mentioned previously. Lifetime data may be acquired by sensors present within the tire and/or the vehicle comprising the tire. Lifetime data may be calculated from property data, such as original weight of the tire, and acquired data during use of the tire. For instance, the loss of microplastic into the environment upon usage of the tire may be calculated from the original weight of the tire and the current weight of the tire. At least one class of tire data may include emission data, recyclate content data, bio-based content data and/or production data associated with the physical entity of the tire. The emission data, recyclate content data, bio-based content data and/or production data may be associated with more than one raw material or chemical product such as those used to manufacture the tire. The emission data, recyclate content data, bio-based content data and/or production data may be associated with more than one raw material or chemical product such as those used to manufacture multiple components to assemble a tire.

Access to the tire data may be controlled based on said classes. At least one class of tire data may be associated with or may include access restricted tire data associated with the physical entity of the tire. For instance, emission data, recyclate content data, bio-based content data, production data, composition of chemical materials used to produce the tire or combinations thereof may be access restricted. Such access restriction may be provided by an authorization mechanism. For instance, the authorization mechanism may include a rule that specifies which data consuming services get access under which conditions. At least one class of tire data may include non-access restricted tire data associated with the physical entity of the tire. For instance, labelling information and/or chemical product safety data associated with the physical entity of the tire may not be access restricted or non-access restricted. Such access may be provided by an authorization mechanism. For instance, the authorization mechanism may include a rule that specifies that certain regulatory data for tires is accessible.

In one embodiment, the tire passport further includes decentral identifier(s) associated with chemical materials or components used to produce the tire and/or decentral identifier(s) associated with the production of the tire (herein referred to as second decentral identifier(s)). The second decentral identifier(s) may be included along with the relationship between the decentral identifier associated with the tire and the decentral identifier(s) of chemical materials used to produce the tire and/or the decentral identifier(s) associated with the production of the tire. The second decentral identifier(s) may be used to generate a concatenation with the decentral identifier of the tire passport (denoted as first decentral identifier hereinafter) according to a relationship representation according to which the first digital identifier is associated with the second identifier(s). The relationship representation may be associated with a relationship between the tire and each chemical material used for its production. The relationship representation may specify that the chemical materials(s) may be used to produce the tire and/or that the tire may be produced by using the chemical material(s). One or more hash value(s) may be generated based on the relationship representation. Hash value(s) may be generated based on the concatenation of decentral identifiers. Hash value(s) may be generated for the concatenation of decentral identifiers. Hash value(s) may signify the concatenation of decentral identifiers. The hash values may be generated based on data associated with the first decentral identifier and the second decentral identifier(s). The hash value may be generated based on a combined data set associated with the first decentral identifier and the second decentral identifier(s). By concatenating decentral identifiers associated with chemical materials used to produce the tire, the tire as well as recycling of the tire, the chemical materials involved in the production of tires as well as the chemical material resulting from recycling of a tire can be tracked and traced virtually. This allows to link the decentral identifier associated with the tire to decentral identifiers associated with chemical materials used to produce the tire. Hence, the relationship between the tire and chemical materials used to produce the tire can be reflected within the tire passport.

The request to provide the decentral identifier may include the second identifier(s). The request to provide the decentral identifier may include tire data or a part thereof. Based on said tire data or the part thereof, data associated with chemical material(s) to produce the tire and/or data associated with the production of the tire may be determined and may be used to retrieve the respective second decentral identifier(s).

A decentral identifier associated with a chemical material used to produce the tire may be associated with chemical material data indicative of whether the chemical material is a virgin or a recycled material, of an environmental impact and/or of an origin of the chemical material. The decentral identifiers associated with the chemical material(s) may be determined based on physical identifiers attached to the packaging of the chemical materials. The chemical materials may be raw materials, including virgin or recycled materials. Raw materials may include water glass and monomers used to produce rubber, such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, styrene and polyisobutene. The chemical materials may be intermediate products manufactured from raw material(s) and/or other intermediate product(s). Intermediate products may include dispersing agents, tackifiers, polymers, such as rubber, natural rubber and polyamide, oil, steel, textile, fillers, such as carbon black and silica, antioxidants, accelerators and antiozonants. The tire may be produced from raw materials and/or intermediate products. The chemical materials may be used directly or indirectly for manufacturing the tire. That is to say, some of the chemical materials may be used for manufacturing one or more intermediate products based on which, in turn, the tire is manufactured. In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, the tire data is collected in association with the production of the tire or the component thereof by a participant of the tire generation chain. The tire data associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the tire or the component thereof, in particular the related decentral identifiers associated with the one or more production input(s), may be collected. The tire data associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the tire or the component thereof may be collected per production stage of the tire production chain. The tire data associated with one or more production input(s) that are used for the production stage of the tire or the component thereof are collected per production stage and/or per participant of the tire production chain. By collecting the input data, the production input(s) can be related to the production output(s) per production stage of the tire and tracking of material flows across participants of the tire production chain can be enabled. This also allows tracking of properties critical for recycling and/or re-use across participants of the tire production chain.

In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, the relationship access element is provided for access to the relationship data set specifying the relationship between the tire or the component thereof at the production stage of the tire or the component thereof and the respective one or more production input(s) used at said production stage. One or more relationship access element(s) may be configured for access to tire data from one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain and/or the tire use chain. The one or more relationship access element(s) may be configured for access to tire data per production stage of the tire production chain by one or more participants) using the tire or component thereof.

In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, the one or more access element(s) may be configured for recursively accessing tire data per production stage of the tire generation chain. The recursive access may be based on access data provided by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain. The access data may be provided by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain to the decentral network. The access data may be accessed recursively by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain and/or the tire use chain, in particular sorter, collector and/or recycler system and/or re-use system participant(s). The tire data may be recursively accessed per production stage of the tire or component thereof from one or more participants) of the tire production chain, in particular the tire and tire component producer(s). The generated data set(s) may hence be accessed by one or more participant(s) of the tire production or tire use chain, in particular the chemical producer(s) and/or tire producers and/or recyclers and/or retreaders, through the one or more access element(s) generated according to the methods disclosed herein. The data set(s) may be accessed per production stage of the tire or the component thereof by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain, in particular the tire and/or component producer(s). The data set(s) may be accessed per production stage of the tire from one or more participant(s) of the tire use chain, in particular retreaders and/or recyclers. The data set(s) may be accessed recursively based on one or more relationship access elements provided by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain, in particular tire or component producer(s), and/or tire use chain. The one or more relationship access element(s) provided by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain, in particular tire or component producer(s), to the decentral network may be accessed recursively by one or more participants) of the tire use chain or production chain, in particular collectors, sorters, retreaders and/or recyclers.

In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, the relationship access element may relate to authorization rules that provide access to the relationship data set depending on a decentral participant identifier. The decentral participant identifier may be associated with the entity operating the data consuming network node requesting access to the relationship data set. The decentral participant identifier may be associated with the data consuming network node associated with a recycling system that provides the decentral identifier of the tire on recycling. The decentral participant identifier may be associated with the data consuming network node associated with a retreading system that provides the decentral identifier of the tire on retreading. This way access to sensitive data relating to the bill of material of the tire in the production chain can be restricted to specific network nodes for which the data access is relevant, such as tire data relating to properties critical for recycling and/or re-use, for controlling and/or monitoring recycling and/or re-use processes. In addition the data access may aid to detect critical properties, such as critical substances, for recycling and/or re-use for participants of the tire production chain.

In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, at least a part of the generated data set(s) relate to or specify properties critical for recycling and/or reuse of the tire or the component thereof by a chemical recycling process e.g. to produce a hydrocarbon recyclate for a petrochemical process. The generated data set(s) may include substances critical for recycling in relation to one or more recycling process(es). The generated data set(s) may further relate to recyclate content used to produce the tire or component thereof, re-use or repair operations performed on the tire, the tire type and/or allowable re-use operations to be performed on the tire.

In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, the generated data set(s) relate to properties critical for recycling per recycling process or re-use process, recyclate use and/or per decentral participant identifier. The participant identifier may be associated with the entity operating the data consuming network node requesting access to the data set(s). The recycling process may be signified by a recycling process identifier. The re-use process may be signified by a re-use process identifier. The recyclate use may be signified by a recyclate type. The decentral participant identifier may be provided by the data consuming network node requesting access to the respective data set. The recycling process or re-use process identifier and/or the recyclate type may be provided by the data consuming network node requesting access to the respective data set. The recycling or re-use process identifier and/or the recyclate type may be provided by the data providing network node providing access to the respective data set. The recycling or reuse process identifier and/or the recyclate type may be provided by authorization rules relating the decentral participant identifier associated with the data consuming network node requesting access to the respective data set to the recycling or re-use process identifier and/or the recyclate type. The authorization rules may relate to one or more data set(s) relating to properties critical for recycling per recycling process, recyclate use and/or per decentral participant identifier. Recycling process may relate to mechanical and/or chemical recycling process including solvent-based recycling. Recyclate use may relate to the reuse of recyclate produced by such recycling process. Recyclate use may relate to a hydrocarbon recyclate for a petrochemical or refinery process. The authorization rules may relate to one or more data set(s) relating to properties critical for re-use per re-use process. Re-use process may relate to a retreading process or another reuse process.

In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, the access element is provided for access to generated data set(s) that include properties critical for recycling depending on recycling process, recyclate use and/or participant identifier by one or more data consuming network node(s) associated with one or more recycler(s) executing one or more recycling process(es). The access element may relate to authorization rules that provide access to data set(s) depending on recycling process, recyclate use and/or participant identifier. The access element may relate to authorization rules that provide access to data set(s) relating to properties critical for recycling depending on a decentral participant identifier, a recycling process identifier associated with decentral participant identifier and/or a recyclate type identifier associated with decentral participant identifier. The access element may relate to authorization rules that provide access to data set(s) relating to properties critical for recycling to selected participants of the tire ecosystem, in particular sorter, collector and/or recycler system participants.

In an embodiment of the method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component, the access element is provided for access to generated data set(s) that include properties critical for re-use depending on re-use process and/or participant identifier by one or more data consuming network node(s) associated with one or more re-user(s) executing one or more re-use process(es). The access element may relate to authorization rules that provide access to data set(s) depending on re-use process and/or participant identifier. The access element may relate to authorization rules that provide access to data set(s) relating to properties critical for re-use depending on a decentral participant identifier, a re-use process identifier associated with decentral participant identifier. The access element may relate to authorization rules that provide access to data set(s) relating to properties critical for re-use to selected participants of the tire ecosystem, in particular sorter, collector and/or re-use system participants.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

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.

FIG. 1 illustrates schematically an example of a tire.

FIG. 2 illustrates schematically an example of material layers making up the tire tread.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a tire ecosystem.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a tire production controlled by an operating system comprising an apparatus to generate tire passports.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a production system providing a tire associated with a tire passport.

FIGs. 6A to 6C illustrates schematically an example of a method or apparatus for providing data associated with the production of tires, the use of tires and the handling of end-of-life tires across a tire value chain via a decentral network.

FIG. 7 shows an example method for generation of a tire passport.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example system and associated methods for generating a tire passport associated with a produced tire and providing access to the generated tire passport.

FIG. 9 shows an example method for using the tire passport to further process the tire data associated with the tire passport.

FIGs. 10A, 10B show examples of authentication protocols.

FIG. 11 shows an example method for authorizing access to tire data.

FIG. 12 shows a schematic illustration of providing access via a data providing service associated with a data owner to a tire passport associated with a tire using a data consuming service associated with a data user.

FIG. 13 shows an example of ID-based owner data, ID-based tire passport data and a decentral identity infrastructure.

FIG. 14 shows an example of a tire passport including certificate-based data, ID- based tire passport data and a decentral identity infrastructure.

FIGs. 15A to 17B show different example configurations for tire passports anchored by decentral identifiers.

FIGs. 18A, 18B illustrate examples of relationship representations which may be used for generating a concatenation.

FIG. 19 illustrates an example embodiment of a circular tire loop including participants connected through a decentral network with decentral network nodes associated with the participants. FIG. 20 illustrates an example method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for re-use and/or recycling of a tire or a component by at least one participant of the decentral network.

FIG. 21 illustrates an example system for obtaining tire data related to the production and/or use based on a decentral tire identifier.

FIG. 22 illustrates relationship data sets specifying relationships between a tire or a part thereof and production input(s) used to produce the tire or the part thereof.

FIG. 23 illustrates a method for of obtaining tire data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof and/or tire data related to the use of the tire based on decentral product identifier(s) and relationship access elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following embodiments are mere examples for implementing the methods, apparatuses, systems, and tire passports disclosed herein and shall not be considered limiting.

FIG. 1 illustrates schematically an example of a tire. The tire may be a tire for a vehicle. The vehicle may include an automobile such as a car, a van, a minivan, a bus, a SUV (sports utility vehicle); a truck; a lorry, a semitruck; a tractor; a motorcycle; a trailer; an ATV (all-terrain vehicle); a pickup truck; a heavy duty mover, such as bulldozer, mobile crane and earth mover; an airplanes; and other modes of transport that are commonly equipped with one or more tires

As illustrated schematically in FIG. 1 , the tire 100 may comprise a tread section 106 and a sidewall section 108. The side wall section 108 may include beads that connect to the rim 104. The tread section 106 may include a layered structure (see FIG. 2) with different liners and the tread 102.

One main material used in tires is rubber, such as natural or synthetic rubber. Another main material includes fillers such as carbon black or silica. Other materials include oil, steel or textiles such as polyester, nylon, aramid or rayon cords. Further materials include chemical components such as antioxidants, accelerators, decomposition products of accelerators, sulfur, zinc oxide or antiozonants.

FIG. 2 illustrates schematically an example of material layers making up the tire tread section, such as tread section 106 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 2 shows a section 110 of tire 100 shown in FIG. 1 to illustrate the layered structure of the tread section 106. The first layer 208 may include an inner liner of synthetic rubber. The second layer 206 may include a ply with fibre wires incorporated into rubber. The third layer 204 may include a casing ply with steel wires incorporated into rubber. The fourth layer 202 may include nylon wires incorporated into rubber. The outer most layer may include the tread 102 including rubber, carbon black and silica.

FIG.3 illustrates an example of a tire ecosystem. The tire may be a vehicle tire as described in the context of FIG. 1. Step 306 in the tire ecosystem may include the production of tires in a tire production 304. The tires may be produced in one or more production steps. The tire production may be connected to an operating system (see for example FIG. 4). The operating system may control the production of the tires.

The tires may be produced from one or more chemical materials 302. Chemical materials 302 may include, for example, chemical raw material or an intermediate chemical product. Chemical raw materials may include water glass, and monomers used to produce rubber, such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, styrene and polyisobutene. Intermediate chemical products may include rubber, such as natural rubber and/or synthetic rubber, oil, steel, fillers (such as carbon black and silica), polymers, tackifiers, antioxidants, accelerators and antiozonants. Chemical materials 302 may be sourced from one or more chemical material suppliers, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6A.

The tires may comprise a tread section and a sidewall section as described in the context of FIG. 1. The tread section may comprise a layered structure as described in the context of FIG. 2.

The produced tires may be supplied from the tire production 304 to vehicle producers. The produces tires may be supplied from the tire production 304 to workshops. The produced tires may be supplied from the tire production 304 to tire dealers (not shown). The tire dealers may supply the tires to workshops and/or vehicle owners (not shown). Supply of the tires may be performed using one or more distribution centers (not shown). The vehicle producers may produce vehicles having attached the tires produced by tire production 304, e.g. having attached new tires. The produced vehicles may be provided to end users which may use the vehicle and hence the tires attached to the vehicle in the use phase 308.

The use phase 308 may include repair of a tire. The use phase 308 may include exchange of a tire present on the vehicle. Repair of tires and/or exchange of tires may be performed by workshops. For instance, the workshop may exchange used tires attached to a vehicle against new tires produced by tire production 304. For instance, the workshop may repair a flat tire to prolong the use of said tire. For instance, the workshop may exchange end of life tires against used tire, e.g. tires which can be reused.

The tire value chain may further include collection of used and end of life tires 310. Used and end of life tires may be collected at return points. The used and end of life tires may be provided to the return points by workshops. The used and end of life tires may be provided to return points by tire dealers (not shown). The used and end of life tires may be collected from workshops and/or tire dealers and stored at the return points. The return points may be initial collection centers. The initial collection centers may provide the collected used and end of life tires to central return points. The return points may be central return points.

The collected tires may be inspected, and further handling may be determined. Further handling may depend on the condition of the tire, tire properties such as type, age, size, and/or the presence of hazardous chemical substances. The collected tires may be reused (e.g. secondhand tire) without any further treatment, such as regrooving or retreading if a certain age has not been exceeded, and they meet certain quality criteria, such as no damage, remaining profile on tread, degree of wearing, etc.. Reuse as secondhand tire may include providing said secondhand tires to workshops or tire dealers. The collected tires may be retreaded if a certain age has not been exceeded and they meet certain quality criteria, such as no damages, tire size suitable for retreading, no spoiling with chemicals or oil, etc. The collected tires may be recycled if they do not contain hazardous chemical substances, such as polycyclic aromatic compounds, dioxines, chlorine, bromine and/or mercury, above defined thresholds. The collected tires may be provided to incineration facilities or disposed on landfills if they cannot be reused, regrooved, retreated or recycled. For instance, received tires may be incinerated or disposed on landfills if they contain hazardous chemical substances above defined thresholds.

The tire value chain may further include recycling, reuse or disposal 312 of used tires. Reuse, recycling or disposal may depend, as previously described, on the condition of the tire, the properties of the tire and/or the presence of hazardous chemical substances. Reuse of used tires may include reuse of tires without further treatment and reuse with further treatment. Further treatment may include regrooving or retreading. Reuse without further treatment may include using whole tires or parts thereof, for example in shipping, as fenders, playgrounds and in the cement industry. Reuse without further treatment may include use as secondhand tires. Regrooving may entail cutting a second layer of tread into tires when the first is worn down. Regrooving may be performed on tires marked as regroovable. Regrooving may allow to extend the lifespan of the tire up to 25%. Retreading may entail removing the tread of the used tire, applying a new tread and performing vulcanization to attach the new tread to the tire. Retreading may safe up to 80% of the cost of the tire. Retreading may be performed once or several times. The retreaded tires may be provided to workshops and/or tire dealers for further use on vehicles. Tires which may not be retreaded may be provided by the retreading company to the recycling company for recycling.

Recycling may include mechanical recycling and chemical recycling (e.g. chemcycling). Mechanical recycling may include shredding of end of life tires at tire a recycling company. The shredded tires may be used for different applications depending on their size. For instance, rough shreds with sizes of 50-250 mm may be used as drainage material and alternative to natural gravel. Fine shreds with sizes of 15-50mm may be used as bases in ground beds for water purification and as an alternative for natural gravel, granulates with grain sizes up to 6mm may be used in rubber asphalt, foundry-tails or as infill for artificial turf. Powder may be blended into paint for sound attenuation or used as a sub-component in the manufacture of new tires and other molded products

Chemical recycling may include devulcanization of end of life tires. The devulcanization may be performed in a tire recycling company. Devulcanization may be performed using the tread of the end of life tires. Devulcanization may be performed using mechanical, microwave, chemical or biological processes to break sulphur bonds formed during vulcanization. The recycled material may be mixed into new tires (in low percentiles) and other rubber products which may be used for sound, vibration and shock absorption

Chemical recycling may include pyrolysis of end of life tires. The pyrolysis may be performed in a tire recycling company. The end of life tires may be shred and may be heated in an oxygen free atmosphere. Prior to heating, metal and tire cords may be separated. Products resulting from pyrolysis may include pyrolysis oil, recovered carbon black and non-condensable gases. From a single tire, approximately 15 % of the weight is steel, 30 to 40 % becomes pyro black (carbon black plus additives) and the remaining part is pyrolysis oil/gas. A tire pyrolysis system may include an indirectly fired rotary kiln, stirred tank reactor, fluidized bed reactor, moving bed reactor, steel recovery, char handling, grinding and pelletizing circuit, oil condensing system and gas cleaning system.

Part of the products obtained from recycling may be provided to tire production 304 and may be used to produce new tires. For instance, the carbon black obtained during pyrolysis, and/or the material obtained from devulcanization may be provided to tire production 304. Scrape tire material resulting from recycling may be provided to incineration centers or to landfills.

End of life tires or parts of end of life tires which may not be reused or recycled may be incinerated. Incineration of tires may include burning of end of life tires and the recovery of energy resulting from the incineration or feeding tires or rubber chips into cement plants. Incineration may be performed if retreading, regrooving or recycling is not possible. Incineration may be performed for scrape end of life tires.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a tire production 304 producing one or more tire(s) 404 from one or more inbound material(s) 302 in connection with an operating system 402 including an apparatus to generate tire passports of tires. The operating system 402 may be used to operate the tire production 304, for example by managing different production chains present within the tire production. The tire production 304 may produce tires from one or more chemical materials, for example by reacting one or more of the chemical materials and/or by physically processing one or more chemical materials. The chemical materials may include raw materials as mentioned in the context of FIG. 1 and FIG. 3. The chemical materials may include intermediate products as mentioned in the context of FIG. 1 and FIG. 3. The chemical materials may be supplied to tire production 304 from one or more suppliers, such as chemical companies producing said chemical materials, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6A.

For producing one or more tires(s) 404, different materials 302 (also called inbound material 302 hereinafter) may be provided as physical inputs from material providers or suppliers. The physical inputs to the tire production 304 may include chemical materials, such chemical raw materials, intermediate products or a combination thereof. Raw materials may be virgin or recycled raw materials as described in the context of FIG. 1 and FIG. 3.

The tire production 304 may convert inbound material 302 by way of chemical and/or physical conversion to one or more tires 404, that exit the tire production 304. The conversion may be performed via intermediate products or components. The conversion may be a chemical reaction or any other processing step. The inbound material 302 may be fed into the tire production 304 at any entry point. The inbound material 302 may be fed into the tire production 304 at the start of the tire production 304. The inbound materials may be considered input for the tire production 304.

The tire production 304 may include multiple production steps. The production steps included in the tire production 304 may be defined by the system boundary of the tire production 304. The system boundary may be defined by location or control over production processes. The system boundary may be defined by the site of the tire production 304. The system boundary may be defined by production processes controlled by one entity or multiple entities jointly. The system boundary may be defined by value chain with staggered production processes to an end product, which may be controlled by multiple entities separately.

The operating system 402 of the tire production 304 may monitor and/or control the tire production 304 based on operating parameters associated with the different processes performed by the tire production 304. One process step monitored and/or controlled may be the feed of inbound materials or the release of produced tires(s). Another process step monitored and/or controlled may the generation of tire passports associated with tires produced by tire production 304, for example using an apparatus for generating tire passports, such as the apparatus in the context of FIG. 8. The operating system 402 may comprise such an apparatus for generating tire passports. The operating system 402 may be configured to generate a tire passport associated with a tire produced by tire production 304, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8. The operating system 402 may be communicatively coupled to such an apparatus for generating tire passports, e.g. the operating system 402 and the apparatus for generating tire passports may be separate units.

The operating system 402 may further comprise a requestor. The operating system may be communicatively coupled to such a requestor. The requestor may be configured to generate a request to generate the tire passport, for example as described in the context of FIG. 8.

The operating system 402 may further comprise an ID assignor. The operating system may be communicatively coupled to such an ID assignor. The ID assignor may be configured to assign a decentral identifier included in the tire passport, and associated information to a physical identifier of the produced tire(s), for example as described in the context of FIGs. 5 and 8. For instance, the ID assignor may generate a physical identifier having embedded the decentral identifiers) and may provide the physical identifier to a labeling device attaching the physical identifier to the produced tire. The ID assignor, the requestor and/or the apparatus for generating tire passports may be configured as decentral services or applications executed via the decentral network.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example for providing a tire associated with a tire passport. The tire may be produced by a tire production 304 comprising an operating system 402, for example as described in the context of FIG. 4.

For producing a tire, intermediate products and raw materials may be provided as physical inputs. The intermediate products may comprise precursor materials. The precursor materials and raw materials may include virgin or recycled materials. The raw materials may be associated with a decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may be associated with a raw material passport of the raw material which may be generated as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8 below. The decentral identifier may be associated with raw material data including, for example, the raw material name, the raw material composition, chemical and/or physical properties of the raw material, emission data of the raw material, recyclate content data of the raw material, bio-based content data of the raw material, renewable content data of the raw material, raw material production data, raw material declaration data, raw material safety data, certificate of analysis data associated with the raw material, certificates associated with the raw material or a combination thereof.

The production of a tire may comprise a two-step process: 1) production of intermediate produces), and 2) production of the tire from intermediate product(s) and optionally further raw materials (not shown). To produce the intermediate product(s), raw materials may be used as physical inputs. The operating system, such as an operating system of an intermediate product production, may access data related to the raw materials based on the decentral identifier e.g. from a raw materials provider. Such data may be used to operate the intermediate product production. For instance, if the raw materials are recycled materials, production steps purifying the recyclate may be comprised. For instance, if the raw materials are virgin materials, purification steps may be omitted. The intermediate product may be formed by chemically reacting the raw materials or by physically processing the raw materials. Chemical reactions may include polymerization, precipitation and other chemical reactions commonly known. Physical processing may include mixing, grinding, extruding, etc.. An intermediate product passport may be generated for the produced intermediate product as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8 below. The intermediate product data may include data from the intermediate product production and further data previously described in relation with the tire data, such as data on the physical properties of the intermediate product, certificate of analysis data, material safety data, product declaration data, emission data, etc.. The produced intermediate product(s) may be packaged, and the packaging may include a physical identifier, such as a QR code, an embossed code or an optical holographic code, such as zero-order diffractive microstructure. The physical identifier may be assigned to the decentral identifier of the intermediate product passport, in the context of FIG. 6 and FIG. 7.

In a second step, the intermediate product(s) may be provided to a tire production to produce the tires, for example as described in the context of FIG. 4. Apart from the intermediate product, further raw materials may be provided to the tire production (not shown). Production data from the intermediate product production of the intermediate product may be used by the operating system, such as operating system 402 described in the context of FIG. 4, of the tire production to produce the tires as described above. The intermediate products may comprise recycled material or material produced by a different entity. Such intermediate products may be associated with a decentral identifier via which intermediate product data may be accessible. An ID reader may be used to read the physical identifier associated with the decentral identifier as described in the context of FIG. 4 above. Intermediate product data may be retrieved using the decentral identifier, for example as described in the context of FIG. 12.

A tire passport may be generated for the produced tire as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8, said tire passport including a decentral identifier and data related to the tire data. The decentral identifier of the tire passport may be associated with the tire via a physical identifier. For instance, the tire may comprise the physical identifier, such as a QR-Code, embossed code, optical holographic code, physically attached to the tire. Such physical identifier element may be assigned to the decentral identifier(s). The assignment of physical identifier element and decentral identifier(s) may be executed through an ID assignor (see for example FIG. 4) running locally, in a decentral system and/or in a distributed system. For instance, the packaging line may comprise a labelling device detecting the produced tires. Based on such recognition, a requestor may generate a request to generate the tire passport and the decentral identifier included in the generated tire passport may be assigned, for example by an ID assignor, to the physical identifier (see also FIGs. 7 and 8 below). Assigning may include encoding the decentral identifier in a physical identifier and providing the physical identifier, such as a code, to the labelling device configured to attach the physical identifier to the tire. The ID assignor may be part of the labelling device or may be a separate device.

The generated tire passport may include the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data. The generated tire passport may further include a tire identifier associated with the produced tire. Data related to the tire data may include tire data. The tire data may be recorded prior and/or during and/or after production and/or during use of the tire. The tire data may include emission data, such as the CO2 footprint, PCF data or recyclate content data. For instance, the tire data may specify the recyclate content for the components of the tire, or the raw materials and/or intermediate products used to produce the tire. Such recyclate content may either be directly associated with the decentral identifier of the tire, or it may be indirectly associated with the decentral identifier of the tire, e.g. via the decentral identifier of the raw materials or the intermediate products. The tire data may include data related to a property of the tire, such as Ell label information, tire specifications (such as tire width, aspect ratio, construction, rim diameter, load index, speed rating, usage conditions), weight of the produced tire, raw materials used to produce the tire, production data of the tire, age of the tire and/or approved uses. The tire data may include data related to the use of the tire, such as driven kilometers, average life time determined from actual distance the tires is used and time the tire is used, type of vehicle the tire is attached to, manufacturer of the vehicle the tire is attached to, wear of the tire, current weight of the tire, data on the workshop having attached the tire, loss of microplastic into the environment, usage condition of the tire, intended use of the tire, repair data and/or weather conditions the tire is used in. The tire data may include data related to the production conditions as provided by the operating system 402 of the tire production 304. The tire data may include data related to the operation conditions as provided by the operating system 402 of the tire production 304. The tire data may include data related to the producer, such as producer name, producer brand or producer identifier. The tire data may include the tire name, tire brand or tire identifier.

Date related to the tire may include digital representation(s) pointing to the tire data or parts thereof. The data related to tire data may include multiple digital representations pointing to distinct parts of the tire data or parts thereof. The data related to tire data may include multiple digital representations pointing to different parts of the tire data or a part thereof. Such different parts may overlap in some data points. The representation may include an access point to the tire data or a part thereof, a link to access tire data or a part thereof, an endpoint to access tire data or a part thereof or a service endpoint to access tire data or a part thereof.

The generated tire passport may include further decentral identifier(s) associated with chemical materials, such as intermediate products and raw materials used to produce the tires. The further decentral identifier(s) (also called second decentral identifier(s)) may be included along with the relationship between the decentral identifier of the tire passport and the second decentral identifier(s). This allows to link the decentral identifier associated with the tire to decentral identifiers associated with chemical materials used to produce the tire. Hence, the relationship between the tire and chemical materials used to produce the tire can be reflected within the tire passport. FIGs. 6A to 6C illustrate schematically an example of a method or apparatus for providing tire data associated with the production of tires and the use of tires as well as tire recycling data associated with the handling of end-of-life tires across a tire value chain via a decentral network.

In FIG. 6A, part of the tire ecosystem including the tire production and the use of the produced tires, for example to manufacture vehicles, is illustrated. In this example, the input material provider, the tire producer and the tire consumer may be connected to a decentral network, for example as described in the context of FIG. 12. Data on input materials and produced tires may be provided via an ID based schema described in the context of FIGs. 8 and 12 in the form of passports associated with the physical entity of the input material, the tire or the vehicle having attached thereto the produced tires.

The input material provider may provide the input material 302. The input material 302 may include raw materials or intermediate products described in the context of FIGs. 1 and 3 above, such as dispersing agents, fillers, monomers and polymers. The input material data of said input material 302 may be provided through data provider(s) (also called data providing service(s)) 602 associated with the input material provider(s) connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. The tire producer may produce the tire(s) 404 from the input material(s) 302 provided to the tire production, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 3 to 5. The tire producer may access the input material data associated with the input material 302 through a data consumer (also called data consuming service) 606 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. Said input material data may be retrieved from data provider(s) 602 associated with the respective input material provider(s). The tire producer may generate a tire passport associated with the produced tire 404, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8. The tire producer may provide the tire passport and tire data contained in said passport through data provider 602 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. The tire consumer, such as a vehicle manufacturer or a workshop, may access the tire data or a part thereof associated with the produced tire 404 through data consumer 606 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12.

The respective data owners in this example may be the input material producer, the tire producer, and the tire consumer. The data owner may comprise any entity generating data. The data generating node may be coupled to the data owner or the entity owning or producing physical products from or for which data is generated. The data may be generated by a third-party entity on behalf of the entity owning physical products from or for which data is generated. In the example of Fig. 6A, the decentral identifier of the tire passport may relate to the tire. Such decentral identifier may be provided to the value chain participants. Via the tire specific decentral identifier, data associated with the tire may be gathered across the production chain and during the use of the tire assigned to tire specific decentral identifier. For example, one or more environmental attribute(s) associated with the tire may be derived from the environmental attribute^) associated with the input material 302 or any other product entity present in the value chain of the tire. Tire data gathered during production may include static or dynamic properties as previously described. The tire data may relate to or include properties of the chemical produces) in association with the use of the chemical product(s) to produce the tire as previously described. Via the tire specific decentral identifier, data associated with the tire may be gathered during the use of the tire attached to the vehicle. For instance, such data may be gathered by workshops or by sensors attached to the tire. The decentral identifier associated with the tire may be used to update the tire data using data gathered during the use of the tire, such as lifetime data or repair data, for example by updating the tire data associated with the decentral identifier or by adding the gathered data to the tire data associated with the decentral identifier. Such data may include data related to the use of the tire, such as driven distance, average lifetime, type of vehicle the tire is attached to, manufacturer of the vehicle the tire is attached to, wear of the tire, current weight of the tire, repair data and/or weather conditions. The use data may be used to determine the current condition of the tire, the average lifetime of the tire or to determine the loss of microplastic into the environment, for example by comparing the weight of the new tire with the current weight of the tire.

This way, the tire data may signify a digital twin of the tire, including the production history of the tire as well as the current state of the tire. Including data related to the use of the tire allows to update the digital twin of the tire such that it reflects the current status of the tire. Moreover, environmental attributes or dangerous contents within the tire can be tracked such that the information can be made transparent across the value chain while the information flow can be controlled by the participants in the supply chain. Data on the components used to produce the tire and data on the use of the tire may be used by the return points, retreading companies and/or recyclers to determine appropriate handling of end of life tires based on said data. For instance, the tire recycler (see for example FIG. 6B) may determine appropriate recycling operations based on said data.

As described in the context of FIG. 3, end of life tires may be provided to tire recyclers. The end of life tires may correspond to input material 302 for the tire recyclers 608 as illustrated in FIG. 6B. The end of life tire data of said end of life tires 302 may be provided through data providers) 602 associated with the tire producers and/or vehicle manufacturers connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. The tire recycler 608 may recycle the end of life tire(s) provided to the tire recycler, for example as described in the context of FIG. 3. The tire recycler may access the end of life tire data associated with the end of life tires 302 through a data consumer (also called data consuming service) 606 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. Said end of life tire data may be retrieved from data provider(s) 602 associated with the tire producer and/or the vehicle manufacturer. The tire recycler may generate a recycled product passport associated with the product obtained from recycling, such as pyrolysis oil or carbon black 404, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8. Pyrolysis oil may be formed upon pyrolysis of shredded tires, for example as described in the context of FIG. 3. Pyrolysis oil may contain a mixture of saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons having from 5 to 46 carbon atoms. The hydrocarbons may be saturated or unsaturated. Unsaturated hydrocarbons may include aromatic hydrocarbons. Examples of aromatic hydrocarbons may include mono-, di- and triaromatic compounds and polycyclic aromatic compounds. Examples of non-aromatic compounds may include paraffins, mono-naphthenes, di napthenes and cycloalkanes. The pyrolysis oil may include up to 30 wt.% of hydrocarbons having from 5 to 10 carbon atoms, up to 60 wt.% of hydrocarbons having from 11 to 20 carbon atoms, up to 10 wt.-% of hydrocarbons having from 21 to 30 carbon atoms and less than 10 wt.-% of hydrocarbons having from 31 to 46 carbon atoms.

The tire recycler 608 may provide the recycled product data or parts thereof contained in the recycled product passport through data provider 602 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. The respective data owners in this example may be the tire producer 304 and/or vehicle manufacturer, and the tire recycler 608.

In the example of Fig. 6B, the decentral identifier may relate to the recycled product. Such decentral identifier may be provided to the value chain participants. Via said decentral identifier, data associated with the recycling of the tire may be gathered and assigned to said decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may relate to the tire specific decentral identifier. This way, data on the tire which was used to produce the recycled product may be derived from the decentral identifier contained in the recycled product passport. For instance, the recycled material passport may contain the decentral identifier included in the tire passport as well as data on the relationship between the decentral tire identifier and the decentral identifier included in the recycled material passport.

Products obtained from recycling tires, such as carbon black, may be provided to tire producers 304 and may be used as input materials 302 to produce new tires (see for example FIG. 3). Data on such products may be retrieved by tire producer 304 via a data consumer 606 from data provider 602 associated with tire recycler 608 as described in the context of FIG. 12.

Hence, the input material provider for tire producer 304 may correspond to raw material suppliers), intermediate product producer(s) as well as tire recycler(s).

Products obtained from recycling tires, such as pyrolysis oil, may be provided to chemical producers producing chemical materials, such as raw materials and intermediate products, using the pyrolysis oil as one input material 302 to produce raw materials, such as ethylene, propylene and polyisobutene, and intermediate products. Further input materials 302 may be use along with the pyrolysis oil to produce the chemical products. Hence, the pyrolysis oil produced by tire recycler 608 may correspond to one input material 302 of a chemical material producer operating a chemical production network 610, for example as illustrated in FIG. 6C. The pyrolysis oil data of said pyrolysis oil 302 may be provided through data provider(s) 602 associated with the tire recycler 608 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. The chemical production network 610 may produce one or more raw materials and/or intermediate products 404, for example the raw materials and intermediate products described in the context of FIG. 3. Examples of raw materials include monomers used to prepare synthetic rubber. Examples of intermediate products include dispersing agents, fillers and polymers, such as synthetic rubber. The chemical producer operating the chemical production network 610 may access the pyrolysis data associated with the pyrolysis oil 302 through data consumer 606 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. Said pyrolysis oil data may be retrieved from data provider 602 associated with the tire recycler 608. The chemical producer may generate chemical product passports associated with the produced chemical products, such as monomers, polymers, fillers and dispersing agents, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8. The chemical producer may provide the chemical product data or parts thereof contained in the chemical product passport through data provider 602 connected to the decentral network as described in the context of Fig. 12. The chemical product data may contain environmental attributes associated with the chemical product, such as recycled content from the use of pyrolysis oil obtained from recycled tires. The respective data owners in this example may be the tire recycler 608 and the chemical producer operating chemical production network 610.

In the example of Fig. 6C, the decentral identifier may relate to the chemical product. Such decentral identifier may be provided to the value chain participants. Via said decentral identifier, data associated with the produced chemical product may be gathered and assigned to said decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may relate to the pyrolysis oil specific decentral identifier and/or the tire specific decentral identifier. This way, data on the tire which was indirectly used to produce the chemical product may be derived from the decentral identifier contained in the chemical product passport. Moreover, environmental attributes associated with the pyrolysis oil may be derived from the decentral identifier contained in the recycled material passport associated with the pyrolysis oil produced by tire recycler 608.

The chemical products produced by chemical production network 610 may be provided as input materials 302 to tire production 304, for example as illustrated by FIG. 6A. Tire producer 304 may retrieve chemical product data provided by data consumer 606 associated with chemical production network 610 via data consumer 606 as described in the context of FIG. 12. The decentral identifier of the chemical product passport may be related with the decentral identifier of the tire passport associated with the tire produced from the chemical product. This way, environmental attributes of chemical products and tires produced from said chemical products 302 may be tracked through the value chain up to the tire. By tracking the environmental attributes of tires in such way, the information can be made transparent across the value chain while the information flow can be controlled by the participants in the supply chain. In addition, the environmental attributes can be handled according to the individual participants needs by production operating systems as described in the context of FIG. 4. Overall, such tracking enables tracking of positive environmental impact by individual tire value chain participants, which makes positive environmental impacts transparent and attributable to individual tire value chain participants.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example method for generation of a tire passport. The tire passport may be generated for a tire 404 produced by a tire production 304 from one or more inbound materials 302, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 4 to 6A. The tire passport may be generated by the operating system 402 of the tire production 304. The tire passport may be generated by an operating system of a vehicle production. The operating system may comprise an apparatus for generating tire passport(s), for example as described in the context of FIG. 8.

In block 702, a request to generate a tire passport for a produced tire may be received. The request may contain a data owner identifier and/or a tire identifier. The data owner may be the data owner of the gathered data and/or the data contained in the distributed data sources. The data owner may be the chemical product producer. The data owner may be a data owner as previously described. The tire identifier may be a batch number, a LOT number, a tire name and/or a tire ID. The request may be generated by a requestor, for example as described in the context of FIG. 7. The request may be received at a computing node (that acts as a DID owner’s management module, user agent, ID hub and/or certification issuer). The decentral identifier may be requested from a central or decentral node. In block 704, authentication mechanism(s) may be provided or selected, this block being generally optional. The authentication mechanism may include a private-public key pair. The authentication mechanism may be selected or provided if the decentral identifier to be generated includes a DID.

In block 706, a decentral identifier associated with tire data and a data owner may be generated or provided. The decentral identifier may include one or more DID(s) and/or UlllD(s). The decentral identifier and data related to the authentication mechanism may be generated or provided.

In block 708, data related to the tire data may be provided. Data related to the tire data may include tire data mentioned previously, for example in the context of FIGs. 4 to 6C. Tire data may be collected before, during or after production and/or during use of the tire. The tire data may be stored on a data storage medium, such as one or more databases. Providing the tire data may include retrieving the tire data based on a tire identifier, such as a tire identifier contained in the request received in block 702. Data related to the tire data may include digital representation(s) pointing to tire data or parts thereof, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 4 to 6C.

In block 710, the tire passport may be generated based on the provided or generated decentral identifier and data related to the tire data. The tire passport may include the decentral identifier provided or generated in block 706 and data related to the tire data provided in block 708. The tire passport may correspond to a DID document being associated with the decentral identifier being a DID. The DID document may contain the digital representation(s) pointing to tire data or parts thereof. The tire passport may further include a tire identifier. The tire identifier may be the tire identifier contained in the received request. The generated tire passport may be stored in a database. The generated tire passport or a part thereof may be provided for access by a data consuming service controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 8 and 12.

In block 714, a physical identifier may be assigned to the decentral identifier included in the tire passport, this block being generally optional. Assigning the decentral identifier to the physical identifier may include generating a physical identifier having embedded the decentral identifier. The physical identifier may be generated by an ID assignor, for example as described in the context of FIG 5, and may be attached to the tire, for example using a labelling device.

The generated tire passports allow a simplified and customizable data sharing or exchange of tire data associated with produced tires from the tire industry to vehicle manufacturers and further participants of the tire value chain, such as retreading companies and recycling companies. Use of said tire data may allow to increase recycling rates of end of life tires, for example by using the tire data to determine appropriate recycling processes for the end of life tires.

The tire production 304 may produce tire(s) 404 from one or more inbound materials (also denoted as precursor materials) 302. Inbound materials may include chemical raw materials and/or intermediate products, for example raw materials and/or intermediate products described in the context of FIGs. 3 to 6A. The tire production 304 may be a tire production as described in the context of FIGs. 3 to 6A. The inbound material(s) 302 may enter the system boundary 804 of the tire production 304. The tires(s) 404 may be produced using the inbound material(s) 302, for example as described in the context of FIGs. 3 to 6A. The tires(s) 304 may exit the system boundary 804 of the tire production 304.

Upon producing the tire 404 or upon exiting of the tire 404 of the tire production 304, the tire passport(s) associated with produced tire(s) 404 may be generated. The tire passport associated with produced tires may be generated upon production of a vehicle having attached the respective tire. The tire passport(s) may be generated by an apparatus for generating tire passports) 802. The apparatus 802 may be configured to generate tire passport(s) according to the method described in the context of FIG. 7. The apparatus 802 may be configured to receive a request to provide a decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may be associated with tire data and a data owner. The data owner may comprise any entity generating tire data or a part thereof. The data owner may be the data owner of the tire data or a part thereof. The data owner may be the tire producer. The data owner may be the vehicle producer. The tire data or a part thereof may be accessible for the data owner. The data owner may hence directly or indirectly own the tire data or a part thereof. The decentral identifier may be associated with the tire passport and a data owner. The apparatus 802 may be configured to generate - in response to the received request - the tire passport.

A requestor 806 may be configured generate the request for the decentral identifier. Said request may be triggered by a labelling system such as a QR Code generator. Said request may be triggered by a code reading system, such as a QR Code reader. The request to provide the decentral identifier may be provided to a decentral ID generator 808 configured to generate the decentral identifier. The decentral ID generator 808 may be configured to generate a decentral identifier associated with tire data and a data owner. The decentral ID generator 808 may provide the generated decentral identifier to decentral ID provider 810. While the decentral ID generator 808 and the decentral ID provider 810 are shown in FIG. 8 as separate units, their functions may be combined within a single unit such that the apparatus 802 comprises a decentral ID providing unit configured to generate or retrieve the decentral identifier and to provide the generated decentral identifier.

The decentral ID provider 810 may provide the decentral identifier received from decentral ID generator 808 to requestor 806. The requestor 806 may be configured to associate the received decentral identifier(s) with the produced tire 404. The requestor 806 may hence contain an ID assignor as described in the context of FIGs. 4 and 5. Such association may include encoding the decentral identifier into a code and providing the code for labelling the tire 404. Such association may include interrelating the decentral identifier to a physical identifier of the tire. This way a physical identifier may be provided that relates the physical entity of the tire with the provided decentral identifier and hence with the tire passport the decentral identifier is associated with.

The decentral ID provider 810 may provide the decentral identifier to tire passport generator 812 configured to generate the tire passport including the decentral identifier received from decentral ID provider 810 and data related to the tire data. The tire passport generator 812 may generate the tire passport as described, for example in the context of FIG. 7. Tire data or a part thereof may be provided to tire passport generator 812 from a data storage medium, such as a database (not shown). Digital representation(s) pointing to the tire data or parts thereof may be generated by tire passport generator 812. The generated tire passport may be stored on a data storage medium (not shown).

The generated tire passport may be provided to tire passport provider 814. The tire passport provider 814 may be configured to provide the tire passport for access by a data consuming service 818. The data consuming service 818 may be part of a decentral network 816. The data consuming service 818 may be associated with the tire recipient, for example as described in the context of FIG. 6B. The tire passport provider 814 may control the access by the data consuming service 818. The tire passport provider 814 may be a data providing service associated with the tire production 304. The tire passport provider 814 may be associated with or under control of a data owner of the tire data associated with the generated tire passport. The tire data or a part thereof contained in the tire passport may be provided to the data consuming service 818 for example described in the context of FIG. 12. This allows transfer of or access to the tire passport and tire data or parts thereof in a controlled and secure manner. FIG. 9 shows an example method for using the tire passport to further process the tire data associated with the tire passport.

For using the tire passport, an indication to access the tire data associated with a decentral identifier of the tire passport may be received in block 902. The tire passport may be structured as lined out in FIGs. 13 and 14. The tire passport may be generated as lined out in FIGs. 7 and 8.

Before access may be provided to the tire data, the request may be authenticated in block 904. In particular, the data consuming service requesting to access the tire data and/or the data providing service providing access to the chemical process data may be authenticating. Such authentication may be based on the decentral identity and the data related to the authentication mechanism. The authentication may be performed through different communication patterns, which will be lined out in more detail in FIGs. 10A and 10B.

If the authentication fails, access to the tire data may be denied (see block 908). If the authentication is valid, an authorization step may follow in block 910. Such authorization may be based on the decentral identifier and data related to the authorization rules. Said data may be associated with the decentral identifier.

If the authorization fails, access to the tire data may be denied (see block 914) or access may be adapted. In particular, the authorization as requested may be adapted to be in line with the applicable authorization rules. If the authorization is valid, access to the tire data may be granted according to the authorization rules as requested and the requested tire data may be provided according to the authorization rules in block 916. Such access to tire data associated with the decentral identifier may be provided using digital representation(s) contained in the tire passport.

The received tire data may be processed in block 918. For instance, the received tire data may be used to determine handling of used tires, such as whether the tire can be reused, regrooved, retreaded or recycled.

FIGs. 10A and 10B show example methods for authentication to access the tire data associated with the tire passport. In the process of authentication, various communication patterns may be implemented to verify identities. FIG. 10A illustrates one example communication pattern that may occur between a data providing service 602 and a data consuming service 606. In this case, the data providing service 602 may act as verifying entity and no separate service may be used for authentication.

The data consuming service 606 may request a service from the data providing service 602 (see step [1]). The request may include a decentral identifier of the data consuming service decentral identifier, such as a decentralized identifier (DID) or a verifiable credential.

In response to the request, the data providing service may access a registry such as a central or decentral authentication registry to retrieve data related to the authentication mechanism(s) associated with the decentral identifier. For instance, the central authentication registry may provide data related to authentication mechanism via an authentication service issuing access token. Further for instance, the decentral authentication registry may provide data related to authentication mechanism by generating a request token. Data related to authentication mechanism may include a public key of the data consuming service.

Based on the retrieved data related to the authentication mechanism(s), the data providing service may generate an authentication request (corresponding for example to authentication request tokens or dynamic attribute tokens) (see step [2]). The authentication request may be generated based on a public key of the data consuming service and/or the private key of the data providing service 602. The generated authentication request may be sent to the data consuming service 606 (see step [3]).

Based on the received authentication request, the data consuming service 606 may generate authentication data for responding to the authentication request (step [4]). The generated authentication data may be sent back to the data providing service 602 (step [5]).

Receiving the response including the authentication data from data consuming service 606, the data providing service 602 may then validate the authentication data (see step [6]). In response to the validation, the data providing service 602 may grant or deny the service request of the data consuming service 606 (step [7]).

FIG. 10B illustrates yet another communication pattern that can occur amongst data providing 602 service, an authentication service 1004, and data consuming service 606.

First, the data consuming service 606 may request a service or initiate a communication with the data providing service 602 (step [1]). The request may include a decentral identifier of the data consuming service decentral identifier, such as a decentralized identifier (DID) or a verifiable credential.

Receiving the request, the data providing service 602 may access a distributed ledger to retrieve one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with the decentral identifier. Based on the retrieved authentication mechanisms(s), the authentication service 1004 may generate an authentication request.

Here, the at least one of the retrieved authentication mechanism(s) may be provided via the authentication service 1004. As such, in some embodiments, the generated authentication request may be sent to the authentication service 1004 directly (steps [2], [3]). Receiving the authentication request from the data providing service 602, the authentication service 1004 may generate the authentication data (step [4]). The authentication data generated by the authentication service 1004 may be sent to the data consuming service 606 (step [5]).

Data consuming service 606 then, in turn, may pass on the authentication data to the data providing service 602 (step [6]). Receiving the authentication data, the data providing service 602 may then validate the authentication data (step [7]). In response to the validation, the data providing service may grant or deny the service request of the data consuming service 606 (step [8]).

Alternatively, in some embodiments, after the data providing service 602 may generate an authentication request and may send the authentication request to data consuming service 602. The data consuming service may pass on the authentication request to the authentication service 1004 (not shown).

Further, after the authentication service 1004 may generate the authentication data, in some embodiments, the authentication service merely contacts the data consuming service 606 to notify the receipt of the authentication request and to obtain consent. When the data consuming service 606 receives the notification, the data consuming service 606 may consent and send the consent back to the authentication service 1004. Receiving the consent, the authentication service 1004 may then send the authentication data directly to the data providing service 602.

Finally, in many transactions, the authentication may be mutually performed by both parties. In such a mutual authentication situation, each involved party may be both a subject entity and a verifying entity. Data consuming service 606 and data providing service 602 may have control over their decentral identifies. At the beginning, services may exchange their decentral identifiers. Next, each of the services may access a distributed ledger to obtain each other's authentication mechanism(s). Each service may then generate its own authentication request based on the other ID's authentication method(s). The generated authentication data may then be sent to the other service. Receiving each other's authentication data, each service may validate the received authentication data. Based on the validation results, the services may then perform additional communications, e.g. one service may grant or deny the service request of the other service.

FIGs. 10A and 10B only show examples of authentication protocols. Also, although the communication arrows were discussed in a certain order or illustrated in a sequence of communications, no particular ordering is required unless specifically stated, or required because a communication is dependent on another communication being completed prior to the communication being transmitted.

FIG. 11 shows an example method for authorizing access to tire data. The tire data may be associated with a tire passport including a decentral identifier and data related to the tire data. The tire passport may be generated as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8.

In block 1102, a decentral identifier of the tire passport (denoted as decentral tire identifier hereinafter) and a set of authorization rules for the tire data associated with the decentral identifier may be provided. The set of authorization rules may include usage instructions defining usage policies for entities accessing the tire data associated with the decentral identifier. The set of rules may include one or more local rules that are specific to a particular location. The one or more local rules may be based on a location of where the decentral identifier was generated, where the data providing service was implemented, where the data consuming service was implemented or a combination thereof.

The one or more sets of local rules may be based on a location provided by the data providing service or the data providing service. The location may refer to a jurisdiction and the local rules may be associated with legal requirements related to the production, supply and end of life treatment of tires. For instance, access to tire may be provided via an authorization rule that may include jurisdictional or local rules. Tire data may include the data mentioned in the context of FIGs. 3 to 6C. The set of authorization rules may include at least one regulatory instruction configured to provide access to tire data relating to regulatory requirements for tires. The provided set of authorization rules may be related to accessing entity decentral identifiers. The authorization rule may include computer-executable instructions to allow access to tire data associated with the decentral tire identifier, deny access to tire data associated with the decentral tire identifier, to modify access to tire data associated with the decentral tire identifier or to modify tire data associated with the decentral tire identifier. The authorization rule may relate to each data point of the tire data or classes of tire data, wherein the selected authorization rule may be bound to the tire data, classes of tire data, individual data points or combinations thereof. The set of authorization rules may include one or more of prescribed rules relating to obligations of the data consuming service associated with the accessing entity decentral identifier. The set of authorization rules may include one or more of prescribed rules relating to emission data, production data, recyclate content data, bio-based content data, provenance data, labor conditions data or combinations thereof. The set of authorization rules may include one or more processing rules relating to the processing of emission data, production data, recyclate content data, bio-based content data, provenance data, labor conditions data or combinations thereof by a data consuming service associated with an accessing entity decentral identifier.

In block 1104, a decentral identifier or data related to the decentral identifier of the accessing entity (denoted as accessing entity decentral identifier hereinafter) may be provided.

In block 1106, the authorization rule for the tire data associated with the decentral tire identifier may be selected based on the accessing entity decentral identifier or data related to the accessing entity decentral identifier. The authorization rule may include computer-executable instructions to allow, deny or modify tire data. The authorization rule may relate to each data point of the tire data or sets or classes of tire data. The selected authorization rule may be stored for application to the tire data. Such authorization rule may be applied before or on data transaction. The selected authorization rule may be bound to the tire data, individual data points or classes of tire data for application to the tire data.

In block 1108, the selected authorization rule may be applied to the tire data associated with the decentral tire identifier. The selected authorization rule may be applied prior to access of the tire data. The selected authorization rule may be applied during run-time on access of the tire data.

In block 1110, the tire data associated with the decentral tire identifier may be provided according to the selected authorization rule.

FIG. 12 shows a schematic illustration of providing access via a data providing service associated with a data owner to a tire passport associated with a tire using a data consuming service associated with a tire consumer via a decentral network. The tire 402 as produced by the tire production 304 may be provided in association with the tire passport. The tire passport may be generated as described in the context of FIGs. 7 and 8. The tire passport may include a decentral identifier associated with tire data and a data owner. The tire passport may include data related to the tire data. The data related to the tire data may include digital representation(s) pointing to the tire data or parts thereof (see for example FIG. 13).

The tire passport may further include or relate to authentication and/or authorization information linked to the decentral identifier. The authentication and/or authorization information may be provided for authentication and/or authorization of a data proving service 602 and/or data consuming service 606. The decentral identifier may include Universally Unique Identifier(s) (UUID(s)) and/or Decentralized Identifier(s) (DID(s)). The decentral identifier may include any unique identifier uniquely associated with a data owner and/or tire data and/or the tire. The data owner may be the producer of the tire. The data owner may own or have access to the tire data or parts thereof. Via the decentral identifier and its unique association with the data owner and/or the tire, access to the tire data may be controlled by the data owner. The data owner may comprise any entity generating data. The data generating node may be coupled to the data owner or the entity owning or producing chemical products from or for which data is generated. The data may be generated by a third-party entity on behalf of the entity owning tires from or for which data is generated.

The tire 404 may be physically delivered to a consumer of the tire, such as a vehicle manufacturer, a distributor and/or a workshop. The tire 404 may comprise a code, such as a QR code, having encoded the decentral identifier. The consumer of the tire 404 may read the code through a code reader 1202. The decentral identifier may be provided to a data base 1204 associated with the consumer of the tire 404. In other embodiments the consumer of tire 404 may retrieve the decentral identifier through registry 1206. For instance, the tire identifier encoded in the code may be used to retrieve the decentral identifier from registry 1206. Registry 1206 may store decentral identifiers associated with tire passports. Registry 1206 may further store access data associated with decentral identifiers. Access data may include digital representations pointing to the tire data or parts thereof. The access data may hence allow to identify the data providing service 602 providing the tire data or parts thereof.

Based on the received decentral identifier, a request to access the tire data associated with the decentral identifier may be triggered by the data consuming service 606 as signified by arrow 1210. The decentral identifier may be provided to the data providing service 602 associated with or of the producer of the tire 404. In addition, authentication and/or authorization information may be provided.

The request may be authenticated (see FIGs. 10A and 10B) and/or authorized to access the tire data associated with the decentral identifier. Based on successful authorization and/or authentication, access to the tire associated with decentral identifier may be granted.

The data providing service 606 may use the received data to retrieve the tire data or parts thereof associated with the produced tire 404 as signified by arrows 1212 and 1214. The tire data or parts thereof associated with the tire 404 retrieved by the data providing service 602 may be provided to the data consuming service 606 as signified by arrow 1216. The received tire data or parts thereof may be stored in the data base 1204 associated with the consumer of the tire 404 as signified by arrow 1218.

Through the decentral identifier, the tire data or parts thereof can be uniquely associated with the tire. Through the decentral network, tire data or parts thereof may be transferred between the producer of the tire and the consumer of the tire and further participants in the tire value chain in a standardized and secure way. This way, the tire data or parts thereof can be shared with unique association to the tire and without central intermediary directly between the value chain players. This allows for transparency of tire data sets across the value chain. The tire passport hence allows to share tire data under simplified and customizable conditions without compromising data security and data sovereignty.

While FIG. 12 has been described in relation to the tire producer and the tire consumer, exchange of tire data may also be performed between the tire producer and further participants of the value chain, such as the workshop, the retreading company and/or the recycling company.

FIG. 13 shows an example of ID-based owner data, ID-based tire passport data and a decentralized identity manager.

The decentral identifier may be a decentralized ID (DID). The tire passport may be a DID document associated with the DID. The ID-based owner data may include a DID associated with a subject such as tire data and may include authentication mechanisms. The ID-based owner data 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 ID-based owner data may include a DID, a private key and a public key. The ID-based 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.

The DID subject may be a tire. The DID subject may be a machine, a system, or a device used for producing the tire, or a collection of such machine(s), device(s) and/or system(s). The DID owner may be a tire producer. The DID owner may be an upstream participant in the tire value chain of the tire producer such as a supplier that supplies raw chemical products or precursors to produce tires. The DID owner may be a downstream participant in the tire value chain of the tire producer such as a customer that consumes tires. The DID owner may be any participant of the tire supply chain including raw chemical product supplier, intermediate chemical products manufacturer, tire producer, vehicle producer, workshop, collector, retreading company or recycling company.

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 tire; the machine, the system, or the device used for producing tire, or the collection of such machine(s), device(s) and/or system(s); the chemical manufacturer producing chemicals, the tire producer, the downstream participant in the tire value chain of the tire producer or a collection thereof; any participant of the tire value chain including chemical product supplier, intermediate chemical products manufacturer, tire producer, vehicle producer, workshop, collector, retreading company or recycling company or a collection thereof.

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 spe- cific-did such as did:example:ebfeb1f712ebc6f1c276e12ec21. The DID may be decentralized independent of a centralized, third party management system and under the control of the DID owner.

The DID document 1304 may be associated with the DID. Accordingly, the DID document 1304 may include a reference to the DID, which may be associated with the DID subject that is described by the DID document. The DID document 1304 may 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 be used for verifying that the DID owner, in fact, owns or controls the DID. The DID document 1304 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 1304 e.g. without giving the third party the right to prove ownership of the DID.

The DID document 1304 may include further identifier(s), such as identifier(s) associated with different parts or classes of tire data. The DID document 1304 may further include one or more representations that digitally link to the tire data, e.g. by way of service endpoints. 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 of the DID owner that give access to tire data or parts thereof. Such services may include services to read or analyze tire data or a part thereof. Tire data may include the data described in the context of FIGs. 3 to 6C. The DID document 1304 may include various other information such metadata specifying when the DID document 1304 was created, when it was last modified and/or when it expires.

The DID and DD document 1340 may be associated with a data registry node such as a centralized data service system or a decentralized data service system 1306, 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 DID document 1304. A representation of the DID may be stored on distributed computing nodes of the distributed ledger or blockchain 1306. For example, DID hash may be stored on multiple computing nodes of the distributed ledger and point to the location of the DID document 1304. In some embodiments, the DID document 1304may be stored on the distributed ledger 1306. Each of the computing nodes may store a copy of the distributed ledger 1306. In this way, each DID hash can be stored redundantly, thereby allowing for an increased data safety. DI Ds associated with a plurality of different DID document 1304may be included in the distributed ledger 1306.

In some embodiments, the DID document 1304 may be stored on the distributed ledger 1306, i.e. either additionally or alternatively to the associated DID representation being stored on the distributed ledger 1306. In other embodiments, the DID document 1304 may be stored in a data storage (not illustrated) that is associated with the distributed ledger or blockchain or decentralized file system.

The distributed ledger or blockchain 1306 may be any decentralized, distributed network that includes various computing nodes that are in communication with each other. For example, the distributed ledger 1306 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 1306 may include known technology stacks like Bitcoin (see e.g. Bitcoin documentation of November 11 , 2022 published https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_documentation), Ethereum (see e.g. Ethereum documentation of August 15, 2022 published on https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/), Solana (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.tech- nology/) 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.

FIG. 14 shows an example of ID-based certificate data, ID-based tire passport data and an identity manager.

In contrast to the example of FIG. 13, the example of FIG. 14 is certificate-based. Certificate data 1402 may include authentication data of the subject and the certificate issuer. The subject may be the data owner or the data providing service 602 operated by or being under control of the data owner. Certificate data 1402 may further include the subject name the certificate is issued for, such as a data owner name, the data owner ID, the data provider name, the data provider ID or a combination thereof. The certificate may be a X.509 certificate such as X509v3. The certificate data 1402 may be associated with an IDS infrastructure 1406 including e.g. a certificate issuing service (CA) 1408 and/or a dynamic provisioning service (DAPS) 1410 providing dynamic attribute tokens (e.g. OAuth Access Tokens). Certificate data 1402 may further include various other information such metadata specifying when the certificate was created, when it was last modified and/or when it expires. The information required to verify the certificate data 1402 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 data providing service 602 associated with or under control of the data owner, a Certification Authority (CA) 1408, a Dynamic Attribute Provisioning Service (DAPS) 1410 and a data consuming service (not shown) are used to verify the identity prior to performing a data exchange (see for example Figs. 10A and 10B).

The certificate data 1402 and the tire passport data 1404 may be stored within the data providing service 602. The data providing service 602 may be associated with or under control of the data owner of the tire data. The tire passport data 1404 may include a decentral identifier, authorization data and endpoints associated with the tire data or parts thereof. The decentral identifier may be a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID), such as a UUIDv4. The UUIDv4 may conform to the following format: [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 authorization information may be used to control access to the tire data or a part thereof, for example as described in the context of FIG. 9. Endpoints may include any digital representation pointing to the tire data or a part thereof. Tire data may include the data mentioned in the context of FIGs. 3 to 6C.

The tire passport data 1404 may include various other information such metadata specifying when the tire passport was created, when it was last modified and/or when it expires.

FIGs. 15 to 17 show different example configurations for tire passports anchored by digital identifiers. The configurations include different relationships for passports generated in the tire value chain up to a vehicle. The passports may be generated using the method described in the context of FIG. 7.

Fig. 15A illustrates an individual configuration for different passports generated in the tire value chain, for example as described in the context of FIG. 3. For multiple product stages in the tire value chain individual passports may be generated. The passport generation may include the providing of a decentral identifier and data related to the respective product data for each of the multiple product stages. The passport generation may further include providing authentication mechanism. The passports for the multiple product stages may be based on crypto signatures. For instance, the passports for the multiple product stages may be concatenated through hash values based on different data sets. As shown in Fig. 15A hash 1 may be based on data of the raw material passport, hash 2 may be based on data of the chemical product passport and hash 3 may be based on data of the raw material passport plus data of the chemical product passport. Likewise, hash 4 may be based on data of the tire passport and hash 5 may b based on data of the chemical product passport and the tire passport. Further concatenation may be done for other combinations of passports up to hash 7, which may concatenate the tire passport and the vehicle passport. The hashes may be used to generate a hash chain allowing to determine the raw materials and chemical products used to produce a tire as well as the tires attached to a vehicle. The sequence of hashes from hash 1 to hash 7 can be viewed as a “mirror” of the value chain from the raw material to the vehicle, since it reflects the relationships between the respective passports. Concatenation via hashes of the crypto signature is only one example concatenation. Other examples include permission aggregations with different scope of data that may be embedded in child passports, public key aggregations with different crypto signatures or service endpoint aggregation with different links.

Fig. 15B illustrates different passports including a concatenation associated with multiple digital identifiers based on a relationship representation for different products associated with product stages of the tire value chain. Among the passports, one passport is associated with a tire. In this particular example, hash values are used for the concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers. The data sets to generate the hash values are schematically illustrated in Fig. 15A.

The raw material passport may be provided to the intermediate product producer using the raw material to produce the intermediate product. Raw materials and intermediate products may include the ones described in the context of FIGs. 3 to 6C. The raw material passport may be connected to a hash value “hash 1”. The hash value “hash 1” may be generated via a hashing algorithm such as MD5, SHA-1 , SHA-2, SHA-3 or any other suitable algorithm based on a oneway function that can’t be reverse engineered. The hash value “hash 1” may be generated based on data included in or connected to the raw material passport. The data for hash generation may include the decentral identifier and the data related to the raw material data. The data for hash generation may include the decentral identifier associated with the raw material, the data related to the raw material and/or cryptographic information connected to the digital identifier. The hash value “hash 1” may be used by participant nodes of the tire value chain to check integrity of the data package transferred from the raw material supplier e.g. to the intermediate product producer.

Similar to the raw material passport, the intermediate product passport may be provided to the tire producer using the intermediate product to produce a tire. The generation of the tire passport may be based on the intermediate product passport provided to the tire producer using the intermediate product to produce the tire. The tire passport may be connected to one or more hash value(s) “hash 4”, “hash 5”. The hash values “hash 4”, “hash 5” may be generated via a hashing algorithm such as MD5, SHA-1 , SHA-2, SHA-3 or any other suitable algorithm based on a one-way function that can’t be reverse engineered. The hash values “hash 4”, “hash 5” may be generated based on data included in or connected to the intermediate product passport and/or the raw material passport. The hash value(s) “hash 4”, “hash 5” may be generated based on clear data itself or based on hash value(s) generated from the clear data. For instance, hash 5 may be generated based on intermediate product passport data and the tire passport data or based on hashed intermediate product data and the hashed tire passport data. The data for hash generation may include the decentral identifier associated with the intermediate product used to produce the tire, the decentral identifier associated with the tire, the data related to the intermediate product and/or the data related to the tire.

The concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers may relate to the decentral identifiers associated with the vehicle, the tire and the precursor material(s) used to produce the tire. Hashing data related or included in the respective passports may provide for such concatenation. The data for hash generation may include the data mentioned in the context of FIG. 15A. Hash value “hash 4” may be generated in relation to the tire passport as illustrated in Fig. 15A. Hash value “hash 5” may be generated in relation to the intermediate product passport and tire passport as illustrated in Fig. 15A. The hash value(s) may be used by participant nodes of the tire value chain to check integrity of the transferred data package. The combined hash value(s) may further be used by participant nodes of the tire value chain to determine the relation of products at different stages and to check integrity of such relation.

As illustrated in FIGS. 15A and 15B, the hash value(s) may be connected to the passports associated with one or more product stage(s) of the tire value chain.

FIG. 16A illustrates an anchored configuration for different passports generated in the tire value chain. For the vehicle, a vehicle passport may be generated. For multiple further product stages in the tire value chain, individual passports may be generated and embedded in or linked with the vehicle passport. The passport generation may include the providing of a decentral identifier and data related to the respective product data for each of the multiple product stages. The passport generation may further include providing authentication mechanism. The passports for the multiple product stages may be based on crypto signatures. For instance, the passports for the multiple further product stages may be concatenated through hash values based on different data sets. As shown in Fig. 16A, hash 1 may be based on data of the raw material passport, hash 2 may be based on data of the chemical product passport and hash 3 may be based on data of the raw material passport plus data of the chemical product passport. Likewise, hash 4 may be based on data of the tire passport and hash 5 may be based on data of the chemical product passport and the tire passport. Further concatenation may be done for other combinations of passports up to hash 7, which may concatenate the tire passport and the vehicle passport. Further concatenation may be done for other combinations of passports up to hash 7, which concatenates all passports up to the vehicle passport. The sequence of hashes from hash 1 to hash 7 can be viewed as a “mirror” of the value chain from the raw material to the vehicle, since it reflects the relationships between the respective passports. Concatenation via hashes of the crypto signature is only one example concatenation. Other examples include permission aggregations with different scope of data that may be embedded in child passports, public key aggregations with different crypto signatures or service endpoint aggregation with different links.

FIG. 16B illustrates different passports including a concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers based on a relationship representation for different products associated with product stages of the tire value chain. Among the passports, one passport is associated with a tire. In this particular example, hash values are used for the concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers. The data sets to generate the hash values are schematically illustrated in FIG. 16A.

The intermediate product passport may be provided to the tire producer using the intermediate product to produce the tire. The intermediate product passport may be connected to a hash value hash 2 that may be generated as described in the context of FIG. 16A.

Similar to the intermediate product passport, the tire passport may be provided to the vehicle producer using the tire to a vehicle. The hash values may be generated as described in the context of FIG. 16A. The hash values may be generated in a similar fashion for the passports up to the vehicle passports.

In the anchored configuration, the vehicle passport may include hash values that relate to the passports associated with the products used to produce the vehicle, such as the tire. The concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers may in this case relate to the decentral identifiers associated with the raw materials(s), intermediate products(s) and the tire(s). Hashing data related or included in the respective passports may provide for the concatenation. The data for hash generation may include any data included in respective passports. The hash value “hash 6” may be based on at least the decentral identifier associated with the vehicle passport and data related to the vehicle data. Hash value “hash 7” may be generated in relation to the passports associated with products at different product stages as illustrated in FIG. 16A. The combined hash value “hash 7” may be used by participant nodes of the tire value chain to determine the relation of products at different stages and to check integrity of such relation.

As illustrated in FIGs. 16A and 16B, the hash value(s) may be connected to the passports associated with one or more product stage(s) of the tire value chain.

FIG. 17A illustrates a fully embedded configuration for different passports generated in the tire value chain. For multiple product stages in the tire value chain, individual passports may be generated. The passport generation may include the providing of a decentral identifier and data related to the respective product data for each of the multiple product stages. The passport generation may further include providing authentication mechanism. The passports for the multiple product stages may be based on crypto signatures. For instance, the passports for the multiple product stages may be concatenated through hash values based on different data sets. As shown in FIG. 17A, hash 1 may be based on data of the raw material passport. Hash 2 may be based on data of the raw material passport and the intermediate product passport. Further concatenation may be done for other combinations of passports up to hash 7, which concatenates product up to the vehicle passport. Concatenation via hashes of the crypto signature is only one example concatenation. Other examples include permission aggregations with different scope of data that may be embedded in child passports, public key aggregations with different crypto signatures or service endpoint aggregation with different links.

FIG. 17B illustrates different passports including a concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers based on a relationship representation for different products associated with product stages of the tire value chain. Among the passports, one digital access element is associated with a tire. In this particular example, hash values are used for the concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers. The data sets to generate the hash values are schematically illustrated in FIG. 17A.

The intermediate product passport may be provided to the tire producer using the intermediate product to produce the tire. The intermediate product passport may be connected to a hash value hash 2 that may be generated as described in the context of FIG 17A. Similar to the intermediate product passport, the tire passport may be provided to the vehicle producer using the tire to produce a vehicle. The hash values may be generated as described in the context of FIG. 17A. The hash values may be generated in a similar fashion for the passports up to the vehicle passport.

In the fully embedded configuration, the combined hash values may be generated from passports associated with all products preceding the respective product, such as the vehicle. The concatenation associated with multiple decentral identifiers may in this case relate to the decentral identifiers associated with all preceding products, such as the raw materials(s), the intermediate product(s), and the tire(s). Hashing data related or included in the respective passport may provide for the concatenation. The data for hash generation may include any data included in respective passport. The hash value “hash 5” for example may be based on at least the decentral identifiers associated with the products up to the tire passport. Hash value hash 7 for example may be based on at least the decentral identifiers associated with the products up to and including the vehicle. The combined hash values “hash 3”, “hash 5” and “hash 7” may be used by participant nodes of the tire value chain to determine the relation of products at different stages and to check integrity of such relation. As illustrated in FIGs. 17A and 17B, the hash value(s) may be connected to the passports associated with one or more product stage(s) of the tire value chain.

The configurations shown in FIGs. 15A to 17B relate to passports generated in the tire value chain up to a vehicle. Similarly, passports generated in the recycling chain from tire to recy- clate(s) may be concatenated. Further similarly, the passports generated in the tire value chain up to a vehicle and in the recycling chain from the tire to recyclate(s) may be concatenated. This way the circularity of products involving tires may be virtually represented and tracked.

FIGs. 18A and 18B illustrate examples of relationship representations which may be used for generating a concatenation, for example the concatenation described in relation to FIGs. 15A to 17B above.

The relationship representation may relate to different stages of the tire value chain, such as the tire value chain described in the context of FIG. 3. The passports at different stages of the tire value chain may be connected to the relationship representation. The relationship representation may be associated with the product produced at the respective stage of the tire value chain and at least one product used to produce the respective product. The relationship representation may be associated with the product produced at a respective stage of the tire value chain and at least one product produced at a previous stage of the tire value chain. The relationship representation may specify the relation between physical entities. The relationship representation may specify that the second physical entity may be used to produce the first physical entity as illustrated in Fig. 18A and/or that the first physical entity may be produced by using the second physical entity as illustrated in Fig. 18B. The relationship representation may relate to at least one intermediate product used to produce the tire. The relationship representation may relate to the tire produced by using at least one intermediate product.

FIG. 19 illustrates an example embodiment of a circular tire loop 1934 including participants 1902 to 1918 connected through a decentral network 1934 with decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 associated with participants 1902 to 1918. The example embodiment illustrated in FIG. 19 may include parts of the tire ecosystem illustrated in FIG. 6A to FIG. 6C.

The participant network shown in FIG. 19 may be a material chain network. The material chain network may include one or more linear material chain(s), such as production chain(s) and/or use chain(s). The linear material chain(s) may include material production chain(s), in which the tire or a component thereof is produced by a tire producer 1902 and used to produce a tire by tire producer 1908. The linear material chain(s) may include a material recycling chain, in which the use tire is collected, sorted and recycled up to a recycler 1918 and the recyclate is used to produce new material by the material producer 1902. The material chain may include one or more production and/or use chain(s). The use chain(s) may include one or more recycling chains and/or one or more re-use chain(s). The material chain may include one or more connected production and/or use chain(s). One or more linear material chain(s) may be connected to the material loop 1934.

The material chain network may include a material loop network 1934 including the use of recycled material(s) to produce new materials. One or more material loop(s) 1934 may allow to use materials resulting from recycling of end-of-life tires to produce new products, such as chemical products or materials, associated with one or more material chain(s). The material chain network, preferably the material loop 1934, may include the production, use, re-use and/or recycling of physical materials or products containing such materials. The product may be a material, a chemical product, an intermediate chemical product, a discrete component containing material, a discrete component assembly, an end product, an end-of-life product, a product to be recycled, a recycled product or a recyclate. To be processed, produced, recycled or the like herein indicates that it is the one of the next production steps contained in a production chain of the output material. E.g. a material to be recycled herein means that the of the next production steps in the production chain of the output material is the recycling step. In some embodiments it is the next step the material is processed by.

Material or chemical product may refer to a chemical compound, a chemical ingredient, a chemical molecule, a chemical composition, a chemical mixture, a chemical formulation, an intermediate chemical product, or a chemical base material that may be used to produce discrete products. Chemical material or product flows may include non-discrete material flows that may be further processed to produce discrete products or components. Chemical material or product flows may include liquids, pellets, beats, powders or the like. The discrete product may refer to a discrete component, a discrete component assembly, an end product, an end-of-life product, a product to be recycled, or a recycled discrete product.

The chemical material or product may be produced using raw materials and/or recyclate. The recyclate may refer to a mechanically or chemically recycled material. Recyclate or recycled material flows may include non-discrete material flows that may be further processed to produce new materials or chemical products. Recyclate or recycled material flows may include liquids, pellets, beats, powders or the like. The raw materials may refer to starting materials used to produce the material or chemical product, such as virgin raw material(s). Virgin raw material may be unused raw material that has not been subjected to any processing other than for its production.

End product may refer to a product that is the result of a material chain. End product may refer to a product that is used by the end product user. End-of-life (EOL) product may refer to a product that has been used by end product user. End-of-life product may refer to a product that does no longer fulfill the requirements for its use. End-of-life product may refer to a product that is no longer required. End-of-life products may be products disposed in waste, such as plastic waste. A recycled product may refer to any product or material that has been produced using end-of-life product(s). A recycled product may refer to a new product or material that has been produced using end-of-life product(s).

The material loop 1934 illustrated in FIG. 19 may include multiple participants 1902 to 1918 forming the material loop 1934. The material loop 1934 may include all stages of the material from production of the material via use of the material to re-use of the material. The material may hence flow in a closed loop from production of constituents, the end product via use to re-use. Re-use may include re-purposing of the end-of-life product, re-furbishing of the end-of-life product and/or recycling of the end-of-life product to refeed recyclate into material production.

The participant(s) 1902 to 1918 of the material loop may be associated with the production of any material or product and/or recycling of any material or product. The participant(s) of the material loop 1934 may include the input material producer(s) 1906, chemical product producer(s) 1906, the tire producer 1908, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) 1912, the end product user 1914, the EOL collector/sorter 1916, the recycler 1918 or combinations thereof. The participant(s) may include various participant(s) of the material chain or loop not shown in FIG. 19.

The participant(s) 1902 to 1918 of the material loop 1934 may be connected through material flow(s) 134. The material flow 1940 may correspond to the flow of product or material from one participant 1902 to 1918 of the material loop to the respective downstream participant 1902 to 1918 of the material loop 1934. The material flow 1940 may refer to a continuous or a discontinuous flow of product or material. The flow of product or material may include any means of transportation suitable to transport the product from one participant 1902 to 1918 to another downstream participant 1902 to 1918. The means of transportation may include the use of packaging materials. The material flow 134 may be a one-sided flow, such as a directional material flow 1940. The material flow 1940 may flow from the upstream participant 1902 to 1918 to the downstream participant 1902 to 1918 of the material loop 1940, such as the material flow 1940 from the recycler 1918 to the chemical product producer 1902. The material flow may include reverse material flow 1940 from the downstream participant 1902 to 1918 to the upstream participant 1902 to 1918 of the material loop 1934. For example, material may material flow 1940 from the chemical product producer 1902 to the recycler 1918, e.g. when the recycled product or recyclate does not adhere to quality specifications and needs further treatment.

The material flow 1940 may be associated with raw materials used to produce the material or chemical product, such as virgin raw material(s). Instead of or in addition to virgin raw material(s) the material flow 1940 may include recycled material(s). The raw and recycled materials may be provided to the chemical product producer for producing material(s), chemical product(s) and/or intermediate chemical product(s) (not shown).

The material loop 1934 illustrated in FIG. 19 may be based on the example of tires and their circular loop. Examples of such tires are illustrated, for example, in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2. The participants may include the input material producer(s) 1906, the chemical product producer 1902, the tire producer 1908, the OEM 1912, the end-product user 1914, such as a consumer, the waste collector and/or sorter 1916, the recycler 1918 such as the recycler, or a re-use operator, such as a retreader (not shown).

The tire may be produced by tire producer 1908. The tire may be produced from a raw material flow and/or from loop material flow 1944. The tire may be produced from chemical product(s) received from chemical product producer 1902. The tire may be produced from input material(s) received from input material supplier 1906 (not shown). The produced tire may be provided to an OEM 1912. The OEM 1912 may produce an end-product, such as a vehicle comprising tires, using the supplied tire(s). The end-product produced by OEM 1912 may be provided to an end-product user 1914. The user uses the end-product comprising tires and hence the tires. During use, maintenance may be performed on the tires, for example by vehicle maintenance shops. If the tire can no longer be used on the vehicle, it may be removed from said vehicle and may be provided to provide to the waste collector and/or sorter 1916. The collected used tires may be sorted by EOL collector/sorter 1916. The sorter may sort the used tires into different fractions. One fraction of sorted tires may contain re-usable tires, e.g. tires which may be retreaded. Another fraction of sorted tires may contain recyclable tires. Such sorted fraction may be provided to a recycler 1918 for recycling the waste tire fraction. The loop material flow 1944 may close the loop between the participants. In addition to the connection through material flow 1940 the participants 1902 to 1918 of the circular material loop 1934 may be connected through data flow 1936 via the decentral network 1938. The decentral network 1938 may include one or more decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 associated with participants 1902 to 1918 of the material loop 1934. In a decentralized or decentral network 1938, the decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932, in contrast to a centralized network, do not exclusively rely on a central network node. In other words, no single entity is the sole authority of the network. The decentral network 130 may include decentral and central network nodes. The decentral network 1938 may include central network nodes that may control and/or monitor the decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932. For example, central network node(s) may provide authentication information, which allow at least two decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 to establish a peer-to-peer communication channel between respective decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932.

The network nodes 1920 to 1932 may be computing nodes. The 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. Computing nodes are now increasingly taking a wide variety of forms. Computing nodes may, for example, be handheld devices, monitoring systems, control systems, laptop computers, desktop computers, mainframes and/or data centers. The memory may take any form and depends on the nature and form of the computing node. The decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 may be connected via a wired and/or wireless connection such as one of Ethernet, USB, LAN, WLAN and the like. Wireless communication may use, for example, WLAN, Wi-Fi, cellular, and/or Blue-tooth. The decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 may be configured to perform peer-to-peer data transactions, illustrated by the arrows 1936 indicating data flow.

The decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 may be configured as data consuming and/or providing network nodes. The decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 may be configured to provide data to other network node(s) of the decentral network 1938 and/or to consume data from other nodes of the decentral network 1938. For instance, the decentral network node 1924 associated with the tire producer 1908 may be configured to provide tire data to downstream participants such as the OEM 1912, or the recycler 1918. Further for instance, the decentral network node 1930, 1932 associated with the EOL collector/sorter 1916 or the recycler 1918 may be configured to access data from the network node 1920 to 1932 associated with upstream participants such as the tire producer 1908.

The decentral network node(s) 1920 to 1932 may comprise computer-executable instructions configured to provide, consume and/or process data, such as data associated with the machine fluid or the machine produced or processed within the circular material loop 126. The network node(s) may run a data providing service configured to provide data to another decentral network node 1920 to 1932 of the decentral network 1938. The decentral network node(s) 1920 to 1932 configured to provide data may be associated with a data owner or a data generating node associated with a material or product produced or processed within the circular loop 1934. The decentral network node(s) 1920 to 1932 may be connected to one or more dedicated data storage(s) storing the data associated with material or product produced or processed in the circular loop 1934 (see for example FIG. 12). The dedicated data storage(s) may be under control of the data owner or data generating node associated with the material or product produced or processed in the circular loop 1934. The data owner may be the respective participant 1902 to 1918 of the circular loop 1934, the data generating node 1920 to 1932 is associated with. The data generating node 1920 to 1932 may have access to the dedicated data storage(s). Access to data associated with material or product produced or processed within the circular loop 1934 may hence be under control of the data owner the respective decentral network node 1920 to 1932 is associated with. This allows to retain full control over data associated with material or product produced or processed within the circular loop 1934 by the data owner. At the same time this enables sharing of data associated with material or product produced or processed within the circular loop 1934 under controlled conditions, for example by using appropriate protocols including authorization and authentication mechanisms or schemes to establish peer-to-peer communication.

The decentral network node 1920 to 1932 configured to consume data may comprise computer-executable instructions for accessing and/or processing data within the decentral network decentral network 1938, such as data associated with material produced or processed within the circular loop 1934 and provided by a decentral data providing network node 1920 to 1932. The decentral data consuming network node 1920 to 1932 may be controlled or owned by or associated with any upstream or downstream participant of the circular material loop 126.

The decentral network 1938 may include further decentral network nodes. The further decentral network nodes may not be associated with further participants of the circular loop 1934. The further nodes may be decentral infrastructure service nodes (not shown in FIG. 1). The decentral infrastructure service nodes may provide services for decentral participant nodes 1920 to 1932, such as verifying the identity of the decentral network participant nodes 1920 to 1932 prior to performing a data ex-change. The decentral network participant node(s) 1920 to 1932 may be associated with or include certificate(s), such as X.509 certificate(s). The certificate(s) may be associated with an identity man-ager 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 node(s) 1920 to 1932 may be associated or connected to a unique identifier embedded in a X.509 certificate that identifies the respective decentral network node(s) 1920 to 1932. 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 the data owner, a Certification Authority (CA), a Dynamic Attribute Provisioning Service (DAPS) and a decentral data consuming network node associated with the data consumer are used to verify the identity prior to per-forming a data exchange (not shown).

The material or product produced by participant(s) 1902 to 1918 of the circular loop 1934 may be associated with tire data associated with properties of tire or components thereof produced by participant(s) 1902 to 1908 of the circular loop 1934. The tire data may be provided for access by the decentral data providing network node 1924 associated with the tire producer. Access to the tire data may be controlled by the decentral data providing network node 124. The tire data may be accessed by decentral data consuming network node(s) 1920 to 1932 associated with further participants 1902 to 1918 of the loop 1934 , such as any downstream participant 1902 to 1918.

The data flows 1936 between decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 may be directly or indirectly associated with the material flows 1940 between the participants 1902 to 1918 of the material loop 1934. For instance, the data flow 1936 may be directly associated with the material flow 1940 if tire data associated with a tire provided from the tire producer 1908 to the OEM 1912 is accessed by a decentral data consuming network node 1926 associated with said OEM 1912. For instance, the data flow 1936 may be indirectly associated with the material flows 1940, if tire data associated with a tire produced by tire producer 1908 is accessed by a decentral data consuming network node 1932 associated with recycler 1918.

Data transactions between decentral network nodes 1920 to 1932 may be based on a decentral identifier associated with the material or product data to be accessed. The decentral identifier may be associated with the physical entity of the material or product. The decentral identifier may be uniquely associated with the physical entity of the material or product. The decentral identifier may uniquely identify the material or product within the decentral network 1938. The decentral identifier may be associated with further decentral identifiers), such as decentral identifier(s) of material(s) or product(s) used to produce the end product. This may allow to track the material(s) or product(s) used to produce a product, such as an end-product. The decentral identifier may be included in an access element associated with the material or product as is described in more detail in the context of FIG.

13.

In particular, the generation of access elements associated with data related to the production and/or use of the tire or the component thereof and generated for each stage of the tire production chain allow for monitoring properties critical for recycling and/or re-use of used tires through the decentral network. Such monitoring by providing access to tire data as will be described in more detail by way of examples in the following FIG. 20 to FIG. 23.

Fig. 20 illustrates an example method for monitoring at least one property of a tire critical for reuse and/or recycling of a tire or a component thereof by at least one participant of the decentral network.

Tire data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof may be collected. The tire data may be collected prior to, during and/or after production of the tire or the component thereof. The component in this case may include any discrete or non-discrete component produced by any participant of the tire production chain such as monomer, polymer, steel, filler, component produced by using the monomer or polymer, tire produced by using the monomer, polymer or the component. The tire may refer to the end product of the tire production chain. The component may refer to any stage in the tire production chain. The tire production chain may include stages such as raw material or recyclate to produce the monomer and/or polymer, intermediate material or component, discrete component or discrete component assembly for producing the tire.

The data may be generated in association with one or more network nodes 1920 to 1924, e.g. in relation to data generating node(s), associated with the respective producer 1902 to 1908. The data may relate to different stages of the tire production chain of the tire. The data may relate to the production of the monomer, the polymer, the use of the polymer and/or monomer in production of the component, or the tire produced by using the produced monomer or polymer and/or the component. The data may be specific to the produced monomer, the produced polymer, any produced non-discrete or discrete component or the produced tire produced by using the produced monomer, polymer or any non-discrete or discrete component. The data may be specific to individual entities or batches of the produced monomer, the produced polymer, any produced non-discrete or discrete component or the produced tire produced by using the produced monomer or any non-discrete or discrete component. The tire data may include data associated with at least one property critical to recycling and/or re-use of the used tire. The properties may denote critical constituents or substances in relation to one or more recycling process(es) and/or one or more re-use process(es). Critical constituents or substances may be constituents or substances that impact the quality of recyclate producible by the recycling process. For example, in the case of pyrolysis oil produced to be used in a steam cracker critical constituents can impede steam cracker operations. The constituents may include contaminants in relation to pyrolysis oil for use in stream crackers. Contaminants may include sulfur, halogens, oxygen, phosphorus, metals and inorganics such as aluminum, antinomy, barium, calcium chromium, copper, iron, potassium, sodium, lead, silicon, titanium, zinc, arsine, mercury, nickel, vanadium, or combinations thereof. The presence of these contaminants in pyrolysis oil can have adverse effect on steam cracker operation. The properties may denote properties critical for re-use operations. Such properties may relate to substances critical for re-use. Such properties may denote the tire types critical for re-use. Such properties may denote the number of allowable retreading operations.

The data may include decentral identifier(s) associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the tire or the component thereof. The data may relate to one or more production input(s) used to produce the respective entity in the tire production chain. Collecting data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof may include gathering decentral identifier(s) associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the tire or the component thereof. The decentral identifier(s) associated with one or more production input(s) used to produce the tire or the component thereof may be collected by reading an identifier element, such as a bar code or QR code, connected to the production inputs.

The tire data may include property data. The property data may relate to or include a property of the plastic article or the component thereof. The property of the plastic article or the component thereof may include a performance property, a chemical property, such as flammability, toxicity, acidity, reactivity, heat of combustion or the like, and/or a physical property such as density, color, hardness, melting points, boiling points, electrical conductivity or the like.

By collecting the tire data related to the production and/or the use of the tire or the component thereof per production stage of the product chain, digital twins of the respective entities produced by one or more production participant(s) of the tire production chain may be generated. This way the entities from raw material or recyclate to tire may be tracked in the tire production chain. The data related to the production and/or the use of the tire or the component thereof may be stored in a dedicated storage associated with the respective production participant of the tire production chain producing the tire or component thereof. The data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof may include different data sets related to the production and/or the use of the tire or the component thereof. Such data sets may refer to the data sets described above.

One or more decentral identifier(s) associated with the produced tire or a component thereof may be provided. One or more decentral identifier(s) associated with production input(s) used to produce the tires may be provided. The one or more decentral identifier(s) may be uniquely associated with the physical entity of the produced tire or a component thereof. 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 tire or component thereof, the production participant(s) of the production chain producing the entity and/or the data related to the production of the tire or the component thereof. The decentral identifier may include or relate to one or more Universally Unique Identifier(s) (UUID) or a Digital Identifier(s) (DID). Via the decentral identifier(s) and the unique association with the plastic article or component thereof, the producer and/or the data access to the data may be controlled by the producer. 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 in implementation as controlled by the data owner.

The decentral identifier(s) may include one or more identifier(s) used in the decentral network and allowing for data exchange or peer-to-peer communication via the decentral network. Data exchange may include discovery of the decentral identifier for participant nodes of the decentral network, authentication of participant nodes of the decentral network and/or authorization of data transfers via the peer-to-peer communication between participant nodes of the decentral network. The decentral identifier(s) may be as-sociated with any participant of the production chain and the respective entity produced by such participant.

One or more data set(s) may be generated using the collected tire data. The one or more data set(s) may include at least a part of the collected tire data. The one or more data set(s) may include data point(s) or a collection of data point(s) included in the collected tire data. The one or more data set(s) may be associated with the provided decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire. One or more relationship data set(s) may be generated. The relationship data set(s) may include the decentral tire identifier(s) and decentral production input identifier(s). The relationship data set may include a relationship specifying the relationship between said decentral identifiers. For instance, the decentral tire identifier may be assigned parent identifier and the decentral production input identifier(s) may be assigned child identifiers, respectively.

Access data associated with the one or more data set(s) may be generated. The access data may be generated per data set. The access data point to the respective data set. The access data may relate to the dedicated storage associated with the production participant of the production chain producing the tire or component thereof and storing the respective data set(s). The access data may include a locator or pointer locating or pointing to the dedicated storage associated with the production participant of the production chain producing the tire or component thereof and storing the respective data set(s). The access data may include one or more digital link(s) pointing to the generated data set(s). The access data may include a locator or pointer, such as am url or uri, to a dedicated storage address associated with the production participant of the production chain producing the tire or component thereof and storing the respective data set(s). The access data may comprise at least one interface to a data providing network node or a data providing service. The access data may include at least one interface to a data consuming network node or a data consuming service. It 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 generated data set(s) may be uniquely associated with the decentral identifier. The decentral identifier may be connected to the access data of the generated data set(s).

An access element including the one or more decentral identifier(s) and the access data may be generated. Access elements including access data associated with relationship data set(s) may be denoted as relationship access elements. The access element may be associated with the tire or the component thereof. The access data may be provided to the data consuming network node or the data consuming service. The access data may be provided by a decentral network database, a database associated with the data consuming network node, the data providing network node associated with the producer of the respective entity or combinations thereof. The access data may include the locator or pointer for accessing the respective data set(s).

The access element may further include one or more authentication mechanism(s) associated with the decentral identifier(s) and the data set(s). The one or more authentication mechanism^) may be associated with or linked to decentral identifier(s), such as decentral producer identifier(s), decentral tire identifier(s), decentral component identifier(s), decentral polymer identifier(s) or decentral monomer identifier(s). 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 data set(s). 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.

The access element may be provided for access to the data set(s) by one or more data consuming network node(s) under control of a data providing network node associated with the producer of the tire or the component thereof. The access element may be provided to a decentral registry node, for example as described further below. Decentral registry node may store decentral access element(s).

FIG. 21 illustrates an example system for obtaining tire data related to the production and/or use based on a decentral tire identifier. The system of FIG. 21 may be used to recursively gather access data per production stage of the tire production chain and/or the tire use chain, wherein the recursive gathering is based on one or more relationship data set(s) provided by one or more participant(s) of the tire production chain. The system of FIG. 21 may be used to recursively request - based on the gathered access data - access to tire data from one or more participant(s), in particular per participant, of the tire production chain and/or tire use chain. The system of Fig. 21 may be used to implement the method illustrated in FIG. 23.

The tire may be provided in association with the digital access element. The tire 404 may be connected to a tire identification as described in the context of FIG. 3. The tire identification may be read through an ID provider 2114. The ID provider 2114 may be a smartphone running a tire identification application. The data obtained by the code reading application may be used to determine the decentral access element identifier (denoted hereinafter as DID1) as described in the context of FIG. 12. The data obtained by the code reading application may be used to determine the decentral tire identifier (hereinafter denoted as ULIID1) as described in the context of FIG. 12. ID provider 2114 may be configured to perform an authentication step with decentral registry node 2102. For instance, ID provider 2114 may access a decentral IAM network node (not shown) and decentral IAM network node may be configured to provide an access token to ID provider 2114 upon successful authentication. This access token may be used by ID provider 2114 to access decentral registry node 2102. ID provider 2114 may provide a decentral participant identifier associated with a participant of the tire ecosystem to decentral IAM network node for authentication.

ID provider 2114 may be configured to provide the decentral tire identifier (e.g. ULIID1) to decentral network node 2104. ID provider 2114 may be configured to provide authentication data, such as a decentral participant identifier and optionally authentication data, such as an access token, to decentral network node 2104.

Decentral network node 2104 may be configured to verify the authentication data received from ID provider 2114 with decentral IAM network node 1 2106. With reference to FIG. 23, and upon successful authentication, decentral network node 2104 may be configured to access decentral registry node 2102 using decentral machine identifier received from ID provider 2114 and to an access element associated with the decentral tire identifier. The access element may include a decentral identifier and access data pointing to the respective relationship data set. The access data may point to the decentral data providing network node associated with the respective relationship data set. For instance, the access element associated with the tire may comprise access data pointing to decentral data providing network node(s) associated with tire data of a tire. Decentral network node 2104 or a decentral data consuming network node associated with said decentral network node 2104 (not shown) may be configured to access respective decentral data providing network node(s) associated with the access data and to request relationship data set(s) associated with the decentral identifier(s) from said decentral data providing network node(s), for example as illustrated in FIG. 12.

With reference to FIG. 22, the relationship data set 2204 associated with the tire may include the decentral tire identifier and the decentral identifier(s) associated with production input(s) used to produce the tire, such as rubber, steel and monomer(s). The production inputs) are in turn associated with digital twins.

The relationship data set may be included in a digital twin of the tire 2202. The relationship data set 2210 associated with the rubber may include the decentral rubber identifier and decentral production input identifiers associated with production inputs used to produce the rubber, such as monomers. The relationship data set may be included in a digital twin of the rubber 2208.

Referring back to FIG. 21 with continued reference to FIG. 22, decentral network node 2104 may be configured to determine the decentral production input identifier(s) contained in said relationship data set(s). Decentral network node 2104 may be configured to access decentral registry node 2102 using the determined decentral production input identifier(s) to determine access data associated with said decentral production input identifier(s). Decentral network node 2104 or a decentral data consuming network node associated with said decentral network node 2104 (not shown) may be configured to access production input data using the respective decentral production input identifier, the access data and optionally the decentral participant identifier provided by ID provider 2114 from respective decentral data providing network node(s).

In this example, decentral network node 2104 may receive a decentral tire identifier associated with a tire from ID provider 2114. The decentral network node 2104 may access decentral registry node 2102 using said decentral tire identifier to determine access elements) associated with the decentral tire identifier. The determined access element(s) may contain access data pointing to a decentral data providing network node associated with tire data. The tire data may be stored on a storage environment associated with the decentral data providing network node 124 (1208). The tire data may include a relationship data set indicating decentral production input identifier(s) associated with production input(s) used to produce the tire (see also FIG. 22). Decentral network node 2104 or a decentral data consuming network node associated with decentral network node 2104 may be configured to access the relationship data set(s) from the decentral data providing network node 124. Decentral network node 2104 or a decentral data consuming network node associated with decentral network node 2104 may be configured to access tire data from the decentral data providing network node 124. Access to the tire data may be authorized based on the decentral participant identifier provided by ID provider 2114. Access to the tire data may be controlled by the decentral data providing network node 124 associated with said tore data. This ensures that tire data can only be accessed by authorized participants of the tire ecosystem, hence avoiding uncontrolled access to the tire data.

Decentral network node 2104 may be configured to retrieve decentral production input identifier(s) associated with production input(s) used to produce the tire from the accessed relationship data set. Decentral network node 2104 may be configured to access access element(s) associated with said decentral production input identifier(s) from decentral registry node 2102 using the determined decentral production input identifier(s). Decentral network node 2104 or the decentral data consuming network node may be configured to access relationship data set(s), for example from decentral data providing network node(s) 2108 to 2112 associated with said production input(s). The production input data may be stored in a storage environment (DT storage 2 to 4, 2116 to 2120) associated with the decentral data providing network node 1202108 to 2112. Decentral network node 2104 or the decentral data consuming network node may be configured to access production input data as described previously. Decentral network node 2104 may be configured to retrieve decentral material identifier(s) associated with materials used to produce the production input, such as monomers, from the accessed relationship data set(s). Decentral network node 2104 may be configured to access access elements associated with said decentral identifier(s) from decentral registry node 2102 using the determined decentral identifier(s). Decentral network node 2104 or the decentral data consuming network node may be configured to access relationship data set(s).

Hence, decentral network node 2104 may be configured to determine, based on the accessed relationship data set(s) and the linking between decentral identifier(s) of starting materials and resulting products/intermediate products, a bill of material tree associated with the tire. The bill of material tree may represent relationships between all materials used to produce the tire. Recursive determination of decentral identifier(s) using relationship representation(s) hence allows to obtain a tire data and properties critical for recycling and/or re-use of the used tire.

The material data gathered by decentral network node 2104 may be provided to ID provider 2114. ID provider 2114 may provide the gathered data to a system configured to monitor properties critical for recycling and/or re-use and/or configured to generate re-use and/or recycling instructions based on the properties critical for recycling and/or re-use contained in the gathered tire data.

Fig. 23 illustrates a method for of obtaining tire data based on decentral product identifier(s) and relationships. The method may be implemented in a decentral network, for example as described in the context of FIG: 19. The method may be implemented by the system of FIG. 22..

A decentral identifier associated with a decentral network participant may be provided to the decentral network node providing access to data e.g. of a producer of the tire chain as for example illustrated in FIG. 19. The decentral network participant may be a production participant of the tire production chain. The decentral network participant may be any participant of the material loop illustrated in the example of Fig. 19, e.g. including production and recycling chain. The decentral identifier associated with a decentral network participant requesting access may include a string and/or numbers. The decentral identifier associated with the decentral network participant requesting access may be associated with authentication schemes, such as a private-public key scheme. Use of a decentral identifier associated with a decentral network participant requesting access allows to improve security with respect to access of tire data, since access to tire data may be restricted and only defined decentral network participants may be allowed to access such data. The decentral identifier associated with a decentral network participant requesting access may be provided to a decentral identity management access node of the decentral network. The decentral identity management access node may be configured to perform authentication steps with the provider of the decentral participant identifier. The decentral identity management access node may provide an access token, if authorization is performed successfully. This access token may be presented to the decentral network node providing access to data. Authentication ensures that gathering of data related to the production of the plastic article or the component thereof using the decentral network node requesting access can only be initiated by authenticated decentral network participants. This allows to improve security since it avoids that complete bill of material trees for a product or part thereof which may contain sensitive data with respect to supply chain information is obtained by unauthenticated entities.

The decentral network node requesting access may obtain access element(s) based on the decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire, one or more component(s) of the tire or combinations thereof provided for the decentral registry node. The decentral registry node may store decentral identifier(s) associated with access element(s) as for example described in the context of Fig. 20.

The decentral network node requesting access may access said decentral registry using the decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or the component thereof to determine access elements associated with said decentral identifier(s) as described in the context of FIG. 22.

The decentral network node requesting access to data may be configured to access relationship data set(s) based on the access elements retrieved from the decentral registry node as described in the context of FIG. 22. The digital relationship data set(s) may specify relationship(s) between the tire or components thereof and production inputs, such as materials, used to produce the tire or the component thereof, as illustrated in FIG. 22. The relationship data set(s) may be directly or indirectly associated with the decentral identifier associated with the tire or component thereof. This allows to determine the respective relationship data set(s) using the decentral identifier associated with the tire or component thereof. The relationship data set(s) may specify that the production input, such as material, was used to produce the tire or the part thereof and/or that the tire or the part thereof was produced using the materials. The relationship data set(s) may be associated with a relationship between the tire or the part thereof and each production input, such as material, used to produce the tire or the part thereof, for example using the decentral identifier associated with the tire and material identifier(s) associated with all production inputs, such as materials, used to produce the tire or the part thereof. Hence, such relationship data set may also specify raw materials and intermediate products used in the production of the tire or the part thereof. The relationship data set(s) may be associated with the relationship between input material(s) and output material(s) of a single production step or stage of the production chain. Such relationship may be linked to mirror the whole article production chain. Examples of relationships data set(s) which may be used to determine the decentral material identifier(s) are, for example, illustrated in Fig. 22. Determining decentral identifier(s) associated with the tire or components thereof using the relationship data set(s) may allow to construct a bill of material tree structure for the tire or components thereof.

Decentral child identifier(s) associated with the decentral tire identifier may be determined based on the obtained relationship data set(s). The decentral tire identifier may be regarded as decentral parent identifier. The decentral child identifier(s) may correspond to material identifiers) associated with materials used to produce the tire or the part thereof. The relationship data set may contain one or more decentral child identifier(s). The relationship data set may include the decentral tire identifier. This allows to link the decentral tire identifier to respective child identifier(s).

It may be determined whether to obtain data associated with the decentral child identifier(s) depending on the decentral child identifier having further child identifiers. For example, if the child identifier(s) are associated with tire data relating to properties critical for recycling and/or re-use of the tire or component thereof, data may be obtained. If the child identifier(s) are not associated with tire data relating to properties critical for recycling and/or re-use of the tire or component thereof, no data may be obtained. The determination may be made based on data provided to the decentral network node. For instance, data associated with a defined data set (also called asset hereinafter) may be provided and this data may be used to determine whether to retrieve further data or not. The data set may relate to tire data relating to properties critical for recycling and/or re-use of the tire or component thereof. The tire data may include one or more data set(s) relating to properties critical for recycling per recycling process, recyclate use and/or per decentral participant identifier associated with the data consuming network node requesting access to the tire data. The tire data may include one or more data set(s) relating to properties critical for re-use per re-use process and/or per decentral participant identifier associated with the data consuming network node requesting access to the tire data. Based on such information provided to the registry node and/or the data providing network node, it may be determined if data is to be provided. If tire data relating to properties critical for recycling and/or reuse of the tire or component thereof is to be obtained, the method obtains data. Otherwise, it proceeds to check for decentral child identifiers.

Data related to production, such as the tire data may be obtained based on the determined decentral child identifier(s). The data related to production, such as the tire may be obtained from decentral data providing network nodes associated with said data related to production. Respective decentral data providing network nodes may be determined by the decentral network node using the determined decentral child identifier(s). For instance, the decentral child identifiers) may be associated with an access data pointing to the data related to production or parts thereof. Said access data may correspond to an endpoint address associated with a respective decentral data providing network node. The access data may be stored on the decentral registry node and may be determined using the decentral child identifier(s) determined before. The access data may be used to access tire data at the decentral data providing network node associated with said digital representation. The decentral data providing network node may be associated with a storage environment storing the tire data. The decentral data providing network node may be associated with a data owner of the tire data. The decentral data providing network node may be associated with the producer of the respective tire or component thereof. Data exchange may be performed after respective authentication and authorization processes. Authorization may be based on the decentral participant identifier. For instance, the decentral data providing network node may determine whether the tire data may be accessed using authorization or access rules associated with the provided decentral participant identifier. The accessed tire data may be transferred to and stored in a storage environment associated with the decentral network node requesting access to said data.

It may be determined whether relationships of determined decentral child identifier(s) are existing. For this purpose, the decentral network node requesting data may access the decentral registry node and may determine whether access elements associated with the determined decentral child identifier(s) is existing in said registry. If this is the case, the method proceeds to determine child identifier(s). If this is not the case, the method proceeds to access and obtain data.

Access elements associated with determined decentral child identifier(s) may be obtained from the decentral registry network node as described above. The access data may be used to access associated relationship data set(s) as described above. The decentral child identifier(s) determined may be regarded as decentral parent identifier(s). The method may return to such determination and repeat the steps using the decentral child identifier(s) determined until no further decentral child identifier(s) are existing, e.g. until the leaf nodes of the bill of material tree are reached. Recursively determining decentral child identifier(s) associated with a decentral material identifier allows to obtain the complete bill of material tree structure associated with a tire or part thereof, e.g. allows to determine the relationships between materials used to produce the tire or the part thereof. In the last step, tire data gathered may be provided. Gathered data may include all tire data gathered based on child identifiers from different participant network nodes. The gathered tire data may be provided to a storage environment associated with network node requesting data. The network node requesting tire data may be a part of the decentral network, e.g. may be a decentral data consuming network node.

The present disclosure has been described in conjunction with a preferred embodiment as examples as well. However, other variations can be understood and effected by those persons skilled in the art and practicing the claimed invention, from the studies of the drawings, this disclosure and the claims. Notably, in particular, the any steps presented can be performed in any order, i.e. the present invention is not limited to a specific order of these steps. Moreover, it is also not required that the different steps are performed at a certain place or at one node of a distributed system, i.e. each of the steps may be performed at a different nodes using different equipment/data processing units.

In the claims as well as in the description the word “comprising” does not exclude other elements or steps and the indefinite article “a” or “an” does not exclude a plurality, “can” or “may” refers to optional features. A single element or other unit may fulfill the functions of several entities or items recited in the claims. The mere fact that certain measures are recited in the mutual different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used in an advantageous implementation.

The present disclosure has been described in conjunction with preferred embodiments and examples as well. However, other variations can be understood and effected by those persons skilled in the art and practicing the claimed invention, from the studies of the drawings, this disclosure and the claims.

Any steps presented herein can be performed in any order. The methods disclosed herein are not limited to a specific order of these steps. It is also not required that the different steps are performed at a certain place or in a certain computing node of a distributed system, i.e. each of the steps may be performed at different computing nodes using different equipment/data processing.

As used herein ..determining" also includes ..initiating or causing to determine", “generating" also includes ..initiating and/or causing to generate" and “providing” also includes “initiating or causing to determine, generate, select, send and/or receive”. “Initiating or causing to perform an action” includes any processing signal that triggers a computing node or device to perform the respective action.

All terms and definitions used herein are understood broadly and have their general meaning.

Claims

1. An apparatus for generating a tire passport, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing nodes; and one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more computing nodes, cause the apparatus to perform the following steps: receiving a request to provide a decentral identifier associated with tire data and a data owner, in response to the request, generating the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data; providing the tire passport for access by a data consuming service under control or controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the decentral identifier is provided by one central node or by one or more decentral nodes.

3. The apparatus of claims 1 or 2, wherein the decentral identifier is provided to a node generating the tire passport and to at least one authentication data registry, preferably accessible by the data providing service and/or the data consuming service.

4. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the generation of the tire passport includes providing the decentral identifier associated with a physical entity of a tire.

5. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the tire passport includes one or more authentication mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier and the data related to the tire data.

6. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the tire passport is related to one or more authorization mechanisms associated with the decentral identifier and the data related to the tire data.

7. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the data related to the tire data includes one or more digital representation(s) pointing to the tire data or parts thereof.

8. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the tire passport is associated with data related to different classes of tire data.

9. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 8, wherein the tire passport is associated with at least one class of tire data that includes data related to a property of the tire and/or data related to the use of the tire and/or production data.

10. The apparatus of any of claims 1 to 9, wherein the tire passport is associated with at least one class of tire data that includes access restricted tire data associated with the physical entity of the tire.

11. A computer-implemented method for generating a tire passport, the method comprising the steps: receiving a request to provide a decentral identifier associated with tire data and a data owner, in response to the request, generating the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data; providing the tire passport for access by a data consuming service under control or controlled by a data providing service associated with the data owner.

12. Use of the tire passport as generated according to the method of claim 11 or by the apparatus of any of claims 1 to 10 to determine properties and/or treatment of the tire associated with the tire passport.

13. A tire associated with the tire passport, wherein the tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data is generated according to the method of claim 11 or by the apparatus of any of claims 1 to 10.

14. A tire passport including the decentral identifier and data related to the tire data, wherein the tire passport is generated according to the method of claim 11 or by the apparatus of any of claims 1 to 10.

15. 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 of claim 11 or by the apparatus of any of claims 1 to 10.