"The Lithium Battery Saga Continues"
More restrictive changes to Transport
Requirements in NPRM HM-224F
During the first quarter of 2010, PHMSA published its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking NPRM HM-224F (NPRM) on Revised Lithium Battery Requirements. The proposal is one of the most significant rulemaking(s) PHMSA has produced in years.
Airpack's Winslow Sully (Airpack Regulatory Compliance Manager), attended the HM-224F Public Hearing in D.C March 5, 2010, and found that COSTHA (Conference on Transportation of Hazardous Articles) came the PHMSA hearing with a lot of concerns. The COSTHA statements as submitted can be accessed here for your reference.
As many of you are aware, PHMSA requested comments on their Lithium Battery NPRM, HM-224F (comment period ended Friday, March 12, 2010). COSTHA's submittal to PHMSA on March 10, 2010 is quite extensive and identifies significant impacts to nearly every industry represented in COSTHA. Comments have been submitted to the Docket Management System but can also be accessed here for your reference. They identified 10 areas of interest, including areas of support (e.g. new shipping names, watt hour adoption, UN 38.3 testing harmonization) and disagreement (e.g. design type testing, elimination of small battery exceptions by air, compliance date), and raise significant questions regarding the Cost/Benefit Analysis done to support implementation of the NPRM. Their submittal is an amalgam of comments received by their NAAHAC, Air Carrier Roundtable, Life Sciences groups as well as retail, distribution, and transport members.
ICAO/IATA for lithium battery shipments
The new regulations target air transport, and in the rule PHMSA limits the use of the ICAO Technical Instructions for purposes of lithium battery transport. This would mean that all shipments of lithium batteries to, from and within the US would be subject to the HMR. The new requirements and the international regulations will now be incompatible so that complying with the HMR will significantly frustrate international shipments, particularly when both apply.
Separate shipping names for lithium metal and lithium ion (rechargeable) batteries.
Lithium metal batteries and lithium ion batteries pose different risks in transportation. Under the international regulations lithium ion batteries were split out of the UN3090 and UN3091 entries.
There are now four names:
- UN3090 Lithium metal batteries;
- UN3091 Lithium metal batteries contained in equipment, or Lithium metal batteries packed with equipment;
- UN3480 Lithium ion batteries; and
- UN3481 Lithium ion batteries contained in equipment, or Lithium ion batteries packed with equipment.
To some of us this is old news, the best is yet to come!
This has been the program with the international regulations since January 2008. PHMSA recently issued a notice allowing that the international shipping names could be used for domestic transportation. The notice proposes to include these entries in the Hazmat table.
The HMR will now reference the fifth revised edition of the UN Manual of Tests and criteria so that battery testing
in the US will correspond to testing done elsewhere in the world.
Replacement of Equivalent Lithium Content (ELC) with Watt-hours
Lithium batteries predate lithium batteries
. From the beginning, the regulations used grams of lithium present as an indication of battery size/content weight. Lithium ion batteries posed a problem because lithium ion batteries do not contain lithium or they contain a mixture of compounds related to lithium.
The UN used ELC as a means of measuring the size of lithium ion batteries; but the term ELC was not widely understood. The UN agreed to replace it with Watt-hours a widely understood term directly proportional to ELC. Use of Watt-hours (Wh) was also introduced into the international regulations in 2008.
Differences Between the International Requirements and the HMR
The NPRM proposals target three size relationships of lithium batteries:
- Small cells and batteries consisting of up to 1g lithium per cell or 2 g per battery (lithium metal) or 20Wh per cell or 100Wh per battery (lithium ion);
- Medium cells and batteries consisting of up to 5g lithium per cell or 25g per battery (lithium metal) or 60Wh per cell or 300 Wh per battery (lithium ion);
- Large cells and batteries are those larger than medium.
PHMSA also proposes exceptions for what we will call "very small batteries" with up to 0.3g of lithium or 3.7Wh. To put these sizes in perspective, laptop batteries are generally close to but less than the 100Wh limit for small batteries whereas a Blackberry battery is on the order of 5Wh putting it just above the limit for a very small battery. The vast majority of consumer oriented equipment (laptons, cell phones, power tools, cameras) are powered by small lithium batteries. International regulations have fewer categories. International regulations provide exceptions for small batteries but regulate medium and large batteries.
The following is a list of the proposed changes that may affect international transportation and domestic transportation by air.
Elimination of the small battery exeption for air transport
Except for all but the very small batteries in or with equipment, PHMSA proposes to remove from the HMR the small battery exception in the case of air transport. This would mean that small batteries would be subject to the HMR as class 9 hazardous materials, and fully regulated. Packages of batteries would have to meet the packing group II performance level.
Ref: ICAO/IATA (see Section II requirements in IATA packing instructions 965 to 970) these small lithium metal batteries and small lithium ion batteries are excepted from full regulations (i.e., shipping paper, PSN and UN number marking, labeling, training, PG II packaging and Notification of the Pilot in Command (NOPIC or NOTOC)).
Look forward to a published USG Variation in ICAO/IATA
The NPRM would propose to use the international small quantity exception for domestic vessel, road and rail transport except that each package of batteries and batteries contained in or with equipment must bear the words "Lithium Batteries Forbidden for Transport Aboard Aircraft".
Under the NPRM medium batteries, including equipment with batteries installed or packed with the equipment, would be allowed to be transported by road and rail under exception provisions. But again the packages would have to bear the air transport prohibition. Here again these packages, especially equipment packages, could easily be brought into compliance with the requirements for air under HMR proposals. But the marking would need to be obliterated.
Under the NPRM, large batteries would be treated in a manner similar to that in the international regulations. Many of these such as automotive prototype batteries are subject to approval by PHMSA.
ICAO Lithium Battery Handling Label
PHMSA is not proposing that the ICAO lithium battery handling label be required on packages containing small lithium batteries. Given that packages would have to bear a class 9 label, be marked with the UN number and proper shipping name and be accompanied by shipping papers render the ICAO mark unnecessary.
Exceptions for very small batteries with or in equipment
PHMSA is proposing that these batteries be excepted from the regulations. For these packages. there would be no HMR required information on the outside of the package indicating that these packages are subject to ICAO/IATA requirements, raising the possibility of airline personnel accepting these without meeting ICAO/IATA requirements when subject to international requirements. III New Requirements for Air Carriers. PHMSA also proposes new restriction on where lithium batteries may be loaded on board aircraft.
We will continue to monitor HM-224F as it moves forward and will provide updates when possible.
Sincerely Hazmat Guru, John Gerrish
 | 
