IATA Lithium-Ion shipping restrictions.

Hey there, Mo here.

I hope you're ready to learn a bit about the ins and outs of the wonderful world of international freight, and particularly, the restrictions around lithium-ion cells- I'm excited, are you? Great, let's do this!

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells are the most common type of cell used in consumer devices today. There is simply no cell technology with a better combination of power capacity and weight.

Li-ion cells are used in everything from laptop batteries, the vape device you are currently using, all the way up to electric vehicles - they are pretty damn incredible!

But, unfortunately due to some mishaps caused by improperly packed li-ion cells during transport, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has started enforcing regulations on how many li-ion cells you can ship on aircraft, and the manner in which you pack these cells.

The long and short of it is that;

1. We can only ship li-ion cells when they are contained inside equipment - ie, your vape device.

2. We can also only send a maximum of two devices per shipment.

You can read more about these super-interesting regulations at:

DHL's guidance document

Straight from IATA

Last bit of nerdy info;

In these documents, IATA refer to "cells" and "batteries" - but what is the difference?

You might have some AA "batteries" in your spare-crap draw at home. These are technically singular cells. 

So, if you buy a pack of Duracell AA "batteries", but they are technically "cells", what the heck is a battery, then?

A “battery” is considered two or more cells connected into one “battery”.

When two cells are connected in "series" (ie negative to positive, which increases the voltage, which is the case in many high wattage vape mods), they are considered a battery.

I know all this talk about "cells" and "batteries" can be confusing, so I've drawn a crappy little diagram below to try to illustrate.

When a device contains a single cell inside (ie, pod system)

= considered one “cell”

When a device contains two cells inside (ie, high wattage mod)

= considered  one “battery” or two “cells”