BRUSSELS, 16 July 2019 — The European Portable Battery Association (EPBA) welcomes the new requirements for marking and packaging of lithium coin batteries resulting from the updated IEC standard published in April 2019: IEC 60086-4 – edition 5 - Primary batteries - Part 4: Safety of lithium batteries.

The new requirements come as a response to the growing number of incidents related to the ingestion of lithium coin cells. On the packaging side, child resistant packaging is now required for consumer packaging of coin cells of 16 millimetres and larger in diameter. An informative annex (annex  F) has been added on the safety pictograms ‘keep out of reach of children’ including a number of requirements on size, colour and position to make the pictogram more prominent. These requirements will become effective in two years’ time, April 2021.

IEC 60086-4 ed.5.0 Copyright © 2019 IEC Geneva, Switzerland. www.iec.ch

EPBA members were actively involved in the review process of the IEC 60086-4 standard. The association welcomes any initiative that educates consumers about the proper usage of portable batteries and alerts them to the dangers so that the number of incidents can be reduced. It was with a similar objective that EPBA published in December last year an animated video about battery ingestion (https://youtu.be/nwLLFJUcphw). Since then we have been in dialogue with different stakeholders in an effort to increase awareness to the dangers of battery ingestion especially by toddlers.

EPBA thanks the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for permission to reproduce Information from its International Standards. All such extracts are copyright of IEC, Geneva, Switzerland. All rights reserved. Further information on the IEC is available from www.iec.ch. IEC has no responsibility for the placement and context in which the extracts and contents are reproduced by the author, nor is IEC in any way responsible for the other content or accuracy therein.  

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 About EPBA

The European Portable Battery Association is the leading voice of the portable power industry. It supports the common interests of its members regarding portable batteries and battery chargers with European institutions and other leading international bodies to provide consumers with complete power solutions which are sustainable across their life-cycle.

For more information contact:

Hans Craen, EPBA’s Secretary General

+32 2 761 16 02 epba@kellencompany.com