Special Council for the Reliability and Safe Use of Lithium-Ion Batteries

April 20, 2007
Battery Association of Japan
Special Council for the Reliability and Safe Use of Lithium-Ion Batteries

The background and purpose of the special council

Starting in August of 2006, some computer manufacturers began voluntarily recalling notebook computers because their lithium-ion batteries were catching fire. After the end of September, manufacturers were lining up to announce their voluntary replacement programs for the sake of user safety. This resulted in increasing concern about the safety of laptop computers.
This in turn resulted in the establishment on October 26, 2006, for the purpose of issuing proper information and technical investigation, of the Special Council for the Safe Use of Notebook Computer Lithium-Ion Batteries under the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA), and the Special Council for the Reliability and Safe Use of Lithium-Ion Batteries under the Battery Association of Japan (BAJ).

Action plan

The BAJ and JEITA worked together to create and release the "Battery Q&A brochure" to further educate computer users on the features of lithium-ion batteries and the safe use of notebook computers.
In the future, product catalogues and manuals as well will reflect the special characteristics of lithium ion batteries and their proper handling.

These two organizations also developed guidelines for the following items relating to battery pack and notebook computer design and evaluation, and publicly released them for use by computer manufacturers in their design and evaluation policies so that lithium-ion batteries would become safer to use.

• Charging methods
• Design methods to preserve the balance between cells
• Monitoring methods, protecting methods
• Battery pack/battery evaluation standards