For many people, blockchain is some kind of incomprehensible mythical thing that everyone is talking about, but no one has seen it. In fact, blockchain technology is the way of storing data that allows anyone to see this data, know that it is immutable, and therefore trust it. This is what makes blockchain a unique technology, applicable to a variety of both existing and futuristic cases. Scenarios of some experiments that the Airalab team of developers offers are described in our blog. But today I want to talk about how you can use blockchain technology in the context of the chemical industry.

Over the last few months, the Airalab team conducted a collaborative project with the chemical laboratory of the ITMO University in St. Petersburg. This project was overseen by devOps of the Airalab team Vadim Manaenko.

The background

In 1814, Sir Humphry Davy, professor of the Royal Society of London, discovered a substance such as chlorine dioxide (ClO2) from the reaction between sulfuric acid and potassium chlorate. This chemical compound, which has a yellow-green color in the aqueous solution and is highly soluble, is a strong oxidant and is safe for human health. Besides, ClO2 is a powerful disinfectant: when bacteria or other harmful microorganisms enter the cell membrane, chlorine dioxide reacts with the organic substances of the cell membrane, which disrupts the metabolic processes in the cell. The most remarkable thing is that the cells of these harmful microorganisms cannot protect themselves from a sufficiently specific exposure to this substance.

Later, Japanese chemists suggested using chlorine dioxide not only for bleaching cellulose, sterilizing rooms, swimming pools, water, etc., but also to protect people from bacteria and viruses that are the causative agents of various diseases. This idea became feasible due to the selection of the correct substance concentration (this is a very important point, we will get back to it in this article). A lot of drugs with a similar effect appeared based on this idea — they allow people who wear a special “badge” with chlorine dioxide on their chest, not to suffer, for example, during an epidemic of flu or other viral diseases.

And how does blockchain fit into this?

You may ask. And now we will get back to the issue of concentration. With the concentration of something, there are always 3 options:

· Lower than we need;

· Exactly what we need;

· Too much.

What does it mean in the context of chlorine dioxide?

Everything is clear with the correct concentration — viruses around the badge holder are dying, like cockroaches from dichlorvos, everyone is happy and healthy. If the concentration of the substance is below the calculated rate, then we can just hope for a placebo effect. Otherwise, we wear a useless piece on our neck and hope to fight the infection with the power of thought. And what if the concentration is higher than the calculated rate? This can be quite a dangerous situation. The viruses around the object are still perfectly eliminated, but the object itself inhales the highly concentrated ClO2 vapors and is gradually poisoned by them.

The final of this story could have been unsuccessful or even tragic if the blockchain technology had not come to play.*

*NB: Of course, blockchain will not protect the consumer from all possible risks associated with the concentration of the product, but, at least, will not allow the facts of verification disappear or be changed by a dishonest producer. So the responsibility of the manufacturer will grow.

Let’s remember that blockchain allows us to trust the data, then add this information on the current case with the production of chlorine dioxide and get the following picture:

The manufacturing company produces a batch of goods, someone (in the technical part of the article we will figure out who) takes a random unit from these goods, checks the concentration of the substance and publishes the results of the verification to blockchain. At any time the consumer can obtain information about the good that cannot be changed or deleted. This partly answers the question about the benefits: the consumer’s benefit is obvious — before buying a product, they can get information about its quality. And what is the benefit of the manufacturer?

About benefits

As I mentioned above, after the concept of using chlorine dioxide in the context of health care was discovered, many similar drugs appeared in different countries, for example: nanoclo2, barrier reef, airdoctor and many others all over the world. How do companies make their product more competitive? I’m not going to talk about advertising, marketing, branding, etc. It’s about the open production process, the availability of information about, for instance, substance concentration. This information anyway exists, but for some reason in our age of information is not used, but in fact with its help you can create an additional value of a product. Today, the consumer is willing to pay for reliable information. There’s one more reason for you to use blockchain in production.

About the product, the customer and the issues

Representatives of the chemical laboratory of the ITMO University appealed to us (Airalab) with the issue that is clear from the abovementioned: to develop a quality system for the production of a chemical.

From the laboratory side the following tasks were solved: development of a unique sorbent, selection of parameters and concentrations of active components, modeling of adsorption-desorption processes (this was done in the structures of the chemical-biological cluster); production prototyping, development of mock-ups, presentations and videos, including a pre-series release were provided by InnoColloids.

“To solve this issue, an autonomous cyber-physical system (CPS) that verifies the concentration of a random packet from a batch was developed. The spectrograph is used for verification. During the testing, the verification was carried out manually, but, with the appearance of the production line, it can be automated with the help of a manipulator,” — Vadim Manaenko said.

It explains who this unknown “someone” is doing the verification on the production, and why he can be trusted (because robots do not know how to lie ©).

A little bit more details about the product, which, by the way, is called NanoDoctor, you can learn from the video prepared by InnoColloids:

A little about technical details. Or how does the blockchainization of technological process work?

So, we have an autonomous CPS that performs concentration testing with the help of the spectrograph. What happens next?

Let’s start from the economic part of the AIRA project: CPS integrates into the Robonomics network. The quality control system is an autonomous economic agent that puts on the market one single service — quality control.

I guess it would be better if you check the article for engineers by Vadim Manaenko as he has already described the technical part.

What are the results?

In fact: Within the framework of this project, the quality control system for the chemical was designed and launched. Note that the architecture has turned out to be universal. To implement such a system to another production, it is enough to change only the algorithm of work after receiving the message ‘task’. It means that the system that we have developed can be implemented on any other production (if you are interested in this control system, please, find the contacts in the end of the article).

If you consider in the context of economic results: They still exist only in perspective. Particularly: it is planned to mass-produce products with sales through retail, and for that purpose the full certification procedure is launched and the search for investment partners is being conducted. The start of sales is planned for autumn, the drug is planned to be sold through pharmacy chains.

What’s more? Due to the implementation of this project, a new quality of the product such as its history arose. Now the manufacturer can sell the production process data, i.e. to receive the additional income, using information resources that they have already got.

Coordinates

• Learn more about Airalab technologies, ask for the similar project for your production: engeneering@aira.life

• Ask the project developer Vadim Manaenko: vadim.manaenko@aira.life, Telegram: @vourhey

• Ask the author: mv@aira.life, Telegram: @mariavasss

Thank you for reading to the end, I will be grateful for the feedback. Stay tuned.