UN/Dot 38.3 Questions - Shipping Lithium Batteries

[MarkJohnson]

Hi, I am looking into making battery packs out of lithium iron batteries, and have a couple of questions about shipping them. Do I need the UN/DOT 38.3 certification if I were to just ship via ground as a class 9 hazardous good? I read a paper that said:

"Also, unless a company intends to be extremely restricted in its options for transporting their lithium batteries (ground transport as Class 9 Hazardous Goods), they will need to certify that their batteries have passed UN/DOT 38.3."

Is that correct?

I've also read that it is a "self-certify standard". Does this mean that if I were to perform the tests myself, I would have to send the results somewhere to register for the certificate?

Can anyone help me out or point me in the right direction?

 

[hogheavenfarm]

I am no expert here, but did read the standard and it appears you can self certify and do the testing yourself. The testing seems pretty technical and requires quite a few batteries as well, depending on which of the tests are done. Even if you were able to perform and document all the testing, I doubt you could send the results off to a lab for a third party certification though, at least not without paying a substantial fee that would include completely retesting all of your batteries. I see most of the big labs are advertising that they perform these tests, so if you need certification, you are better off having them do it.

 

[MarkJohnson]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, the testing seems very technical so I would probably use a lab to do it for me. I'm just unsure if I need to get the testing done if I'm only shipping via ground as a class 9 hazardous good. I thought the UN/DOT 38.3 test was just for aircraft, but I'm not sure.

 

[Pads38]

There is a (free) on-demand webinar available that may be useful.

http://www.intertek.com/batteries/un-38-3-requirements-for-transporting-lithium-batteries-webinar/

Registration required.
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