Manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries may have to guarantee their cells and packs are charged to no more 30% SOC (state of charge) when shipped by air, following a technical recommendation from IATA, the International Air Transport Association, which regulates, on among other things, the movement of dangerous goods by air.
The potentially explosive change in regulations was revealed at the Baltimore lithium battery conference last week.
Pressure is still mounting from interested parties on an outright ban on the movement of lithium-ion products by air, Nancy Rockbrune, head of Safety management systems at IATA, told the audience.
Manufacturers would have less than three months to implement the changes, which George Kerchner, Executive Director of the Portable Rechargable Battery Association (PRBA), said would be “impossible to achieve” and that PRBA had written this week to IATA asking for a delay until at least September 2016, with the development of new standards for battery shipping by air.
While IATA itself is not in favour of a ban, the evidence for the degree of catastrophic damage burning lithium-ion batteries could do to an aircraft cargo hold has grown massively in the past year.
The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) had conducted tests earlier this year which showed that as few as ten 18650 cells going into thermal runaway could create sufficient volume of flammable gas to “pop open” an aircraft’s hold on a Boeing 737. Further, once this had occurred, the preferred fire extinguishing product, Halon, was no longer effective because it would be impossible to achieve a 5% concentration of the extinguishing gas. In these circumstances, a lithium-ion battery fire would become uncontrollable.
The impact of the new regulations, even if they are delayed until next September, will have considerable financial impact on the battery industry, with new packaging methods capable of fully containing such a fire and its gaseous products having to be developed.
New limitations on the numbers of cells and packs which can be shipped are also likely to appear, which may effectively act as a ban on air transportation, one source said.
IATA believes a ban is not necessary, given the incidence of probable on board battery fires which have caused ” hull loss” and deaths.
Over a ten year period, just three incidents are known to have occurred with two deaths (of aircrew). In the same period, several thousand passenger were killed in air crashes all over the world.
The probability of a battery fire is very low but the consequences of one are severe and this is what we need to take into account, said Rockbrune.
