Category Archives: Rules of Thumb

Most of the products that I work on are powered by lithium batteries. Lithium batteries are popular today because they have excellent energy density but there are safety concerns with using them because there have been issues with battery fires. These fires have caused the shipping industry to impose special labeling and packaging information on their transport. I recently have needed to consider shipping batteries on airplanes, so I have been looking at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shipment guidance for lithium-ion batteries.  These rules require knowing the amount of total amount of lithium mass present in a lithium-ion battery. This is not a number that is easy to get from the manufacturers, though I do have a number from one vendor. Continue reading →