UN compliant packaging solutions

Situation

One of our customers, a battery producer, was having issues managing two different flows of battery packs. One was the regular flow of battery packs to their car assembly sites and the other was the distribution of spare battery packs to end user's garages in multiple regions of the world. Due to these two flows being vastly different from one another, our customer faced many challenges with maintaining a lean supply chain. To reduce complexity on their end, it was preferred that the new packaging solution could be used for both flows. 

Nefab has a multitude of certificates for lithium ion batteries and other dangerous goods, covering over 600 different boxes, all of which are accredited according to UN standards. All of these boxes, as outer packaging, or together with internal packaging, make up complete packaging solutions for batteries. To determine if our approved solutions can be used with your product, we will first investigate what packaging types are approved to use with the dangerous goods class of your product and your intended method of transportation. Then, we will calculate the gross weight of the shipment and see if we have an approved dangerous goods certificate that matches your product.

If there is no pre-approved packaging which fully accommodates your product, Nefab can develop a new packaging. Due to the stringent requirements stipulated by the UN for dangerous goods packaging, the developed solution must go through a type approval test before it can be used to ship these goods. International agreements for the carriage of dangerous goods require packaging to be of a design-type, certified by a national competent authority. This involves testing the packaging according to the appropriate UN specifications to ensure its suitability for the carriage of certain dangerous goods. Our engineers have the skillset and experience to take new dangerous goods packaging through this process.

Due to the volatile nature of lithium ion batteries, the United Nations has declared them a dangerous good. Below are the different classes of dangerous goods that the UN has assigned:

• Class 1 – Explosives
• Class 2 – Gases
• Class 3 – Flammable liquids
• Class 4 – Flammable solids or substances that may spontaneously combust or that may emit flammable gases when in contact with water.
• Class 5 – Oxidizing substances and organic peroxides
• Class 6 – Toxic or infectious substances
• Class 7 – Radioactive materials
• Class 8 – Corrosives
• Class 9 – Miscellaneous dangerous goods not classified.

Lithium ion batteries fall under Class 9, as they are not adequately represented by the other classes. It must be marked and represented as such whenever it is being shipped.