The scoop on lithium ion batteries, and workarounds if any

I had a small B and H Vello RF release item on sale in my cart but was refused shipment by any means, hmmm. So it cannot be shipped to Hawaii or Alaska. Airline and carriers will not abide them, either carrier or federal reg I am not sure. From the sales person at B and H this current prohibition results from big time incidents of fires in batteries on aircraft. I recall a big one in the news, thought they had fixed the problem whatever that was. In the event, the trigger hand held remote release has one button battery, Li ion technology. Confirmed by his superior. I guess the workaround is to have any such item mailed to a relative up East, ask him to remove the installed battery and transship to me. Or maybe there is 1) a way to send such batteried items via USPS with proper marking. Or I could just hop over to NYC....or, who knows, they may fix this little bump in the road. Any Elex Engineers on line know more about this vexing little deal? Hey, Paradise has its price:-)(

Find a member who is coming your way on holiday?

FWIW, last week I tried to ship a laptop battery to someone in Australia. It came back to me today stating it could only be "shipped installed in the device it fits" and of course out my $35 to not make it out of customs...

 

It was an NOS PowerBook G3. Fortunately, I was already working with the guy on some other PowerBook G3 parts. I had dug out a parts machine that I was going to pull the stuff he was asking about out of it, but instead I'm just going to ship him the complete computer with the battery installed in it.

 

I don't know if something similar is possible, but at least that's one way I'm currently working through to ship something legally at least as was explained to me.

Batteries not included now becomes desirable option. I do not expect B and H to handle this for me, though I am going to ask Henry what he thinks. Never cared for button cells, prefer double or triple AAAs. I expect this business will get resolved one way or the other. So I am assuming that anything shipped NYC to California with such batteries will now have to go only by ground....I can still get my lawn trimmer batteries locally but I think Amazon also will not air ship. Your experience Ben, is interesting. A new age of travel. I am cooling it at home this Summer. Will I have to take out my camera battery next time I fly and have it asbestos wrapped. I mean no kidding. Seems the rule applies to baggage but I did not get the whole picture from the Google. ( Has Samsung done us all a dirty deed, without knowing it?) We do tend to over react, though a fire on a plane can ruin a pilot's whole day granted...

IMHO, the problem is that energy demand is pushing the battery technology to the limit.

So rather than less power in a safer battery, they put more power into a border-line battery technology.

When it works fine it is great. It is when there is a problem the the Li batteries create a BIGGER problem than NiCd or NiMH.

 

When you fly, it isn't the battery in your camera or laptop, it is the spare batteries in your hand carry that seems to be attracting attention.

But who knows what TSA is looking for.

Shipping rules for LI and Li-Ion batters depends on the equivalent amount of metallic lithium in the device. I suspect that a pallet of coin-sized batteries would be subject to the same restriction as a pallet of huge Anton Bauer video batteries (or industrial batteries), but I'd have to delve deeper into the regulations to be sure. Like so many issues, lithium batteries are subject to overreaction by both government and carriers.

 

Depending on the substance, HAZMAT rules do not allow more than 50 pounds in a single cargo manifest. That makes it uneconomical to ship many items. Much air freight is made in passenger flights, but HAZMAT shipments are restricted to non-passenger carriers. Packages containing Li or Li-Ion batteries must be so declared on the outside of the package.

Depending on the substance, HAZMAT rules do not allow more than 50 pounds in a single cargo manifest. That makes it uneconomical to ship many items. Much air freight is made in passenger flights, but HAZMAT shipments are restricted to non-passenger carriers. Packages containing Li or Li-Ion batteries must be so declared on the outside of the package.

 

As a side note, I've noticed something interesting at work in the past few months.

 

I'm a chemist, and in managing the stockroom of a decent sized teaching and research I have some decent amounts of "hazmats" pass through my hands.

 

Among other things, we order drum quantities of solvents(particularly acetone) and bunches of other stuff at a time. Aside from concentrated acids, we also order .1M NaOH and HCl for the teaching labs. The solvents use to be 20L drums, although over the past year or two we've seen the size drop to 19 and 18L(18L is almost exactly 5 gallons). Some come in 4x4L case-this is true both of solvents and of the HCl and NaOH I mentioned. Concentrated acids usually come in a 6-pack of 2.5L bottles(although nitric acid typically is individually boxed with the poly-coated glass bottle in a tin can inside a box).

 

First of all, drums use to come "loose"-in my time I've probably unloaded thousandss of 20L metal drums from the back of a UPS or Fed-Ex truck. The drums just have a shipping label and packing slip stuck to the side of them. The 18L now almost universally come in an overpacked box.

 

Second, we did get SOME stuff by freight, but nearly everything came by regular UPS or Fed-Ex ground. We'd only get the real "nasties" by freight-usually pyrophorics like organolithium reagents or highly reactive stuff like elemental bromine.

 

About a month back, we had a first-a drum of dicloromethane came freight. DCM is not particularly healthy, but at the same time its flamability is low(it wont sustain a flame on its own, although admittedly if it's in a fire it can give off HCl and some other not so good stuff). A 20L drum weighs close to 70lbs, and I'm wondering if the weight had something to do with this.

 

Then, in preparing for the fall semester, we ordered 20 cases each of .1M NaOH and .1M HCl. As I mentioned above, a case is 4x4L bottles, or 16L total. It weighs around 40lbs. As reactivity goes, these dilute solutions are pretty far down the list. None the less, the HCl came freight(we're still waiting on the NaOH).

 

In the past, our freight deliveries have almost always been UPS. Now, we're also seeing a lot of smaller carriers making these kind of deliveries. It's also turned into a pain for us-our loading dock is the correct height for a UPS or Fed-Ex truck, but too low for a semi. When big quantities come freight, they're usually on pallets and we end up unpacking them from the pallet to unload them from the truck just for logistical reasons.

I think it surprised me that a button cell, of the kind in some alarm clocks I have ordered would not ship....but I have a cousin in Boston who will assist if it comes to that. I had a cart item on special at fifty bucks off, hate to miss that deal. But hey, I get to gripe to my comrades here at PN. Gripegripegripegriparino...

I buy lithium batteries online on a regular basis, and shipping to the Chicago area is not a problem. However, I see that Amazon will not ship HAZMAT items to Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico, including lithium batteries. That may be company policy rather than a governmental restriction, due to extra expense and carrier restrictions. I'm sure you can buy these batteries in Hawaii, just not directly from the mainland. B&H will not ship HAZMAT items from NYC, but will from their NJ warehouse.

I bought a cordless drill from a friend several states away. The UPS & USPS refused to ship it by air even though it had NiCad, Not Lithium Ion batteries! This ReArt stuff is getting silly. Everydarnthing is becoming ReArt , HazMat, or both.

How about UPS Ground, 3-5 days?

 

UPS has at least two types of outlets, stores and stations. The retail outlets are franchised to private individuals, whereas the stations are integral to UPS and offer more professional service. For me it's a difference of 3 miles to a store or 8 miles to a hub, both FedEx and UPS. Still there seems to be variations how outlets interpret the law and their own tariffs, particularly for batteries and firearms (station only). There should be no problem with Ni-Cad batteries, as long as they are disconnected and properly packed.

a hub, both FedEx and UPS. Still there seems to be variations how outlets interpret the law and their own tariffs, particularly for batteries and firearms (station only)

 

I've had issues at one particular Fed-Ex hub on firearms. Per federal law(as I understand it) the box can not be marked as to containing a firearm but must be verbally declared when tendered to the shipper.

 

Even here in "Guntucky" I had issues trying to ship a gun to Ruger for warranty work. They emailed me the label, I boxed it up, and then took it to the closest hub. As per regulation, it was in a plain brown box and the shipping label was addressed to "SRC, Inc." When I handed it over, I said "this is an unloaded firearm being returned to the manufacturer for repair." The person behind the counter said it was illegal for me to ship it, and refused to take it. I drove to another across town, where the counter person just looked at the label, said "Is this a firearm?" and when I responded yes took it without further comment. It was on my doorstep repaired perfectly two weeks later :) (I'm an S&W guy, but you can't beat Ruger service).

Avoid the stores they are very hit or miss.

The drill with its NiCads was shipped UPS ground with no problems if that helps any.

I can and often do opt for UPS Ground to Hawaii. This means truck to Riverdale or such and then by air to Hawaii another 2500 miles in the Pacific. Matson containers handle most of the merchandise in stores and the big box warehouses. I still feel there is an unexplained something in all this. Meaning my persistent mind wonders: If lithium batteries are heat prone, what size and what energy? Are all lithium batteries in the same category...it appears not. If a cel is button size it can surely not get shorted and cause sparks...though I have not experimented? If a battery does short and overheat, will it do so at all charges? At 30%? What about Ni Mh, any problem in that chemistry? inquiring minds seek to know! I mean I do not operate a Pentax K 1000. Maybe I should, but fiddle dee dee. I am awaiting Henry Posner's reply to see if he has anything to add....and whose regs are these anyway? FAA or NHTSB or the IATA? There should be a law. Is there?

 

( That said I do like these new Electric vehicles, like the Tesla. Hats off to new battery technology, guys)

Its a complicated world. Sounds like the folks in Hawaii are going "wind up" in the future.

This may explain it (or not) The regs changed last year.

https://www.ups.com/media/news/en/ca/intl_lithium_battery_regulations.pdf