Driving standardisation – IEC TC 113 Autumn Meeting in Shenzhen

The IEC TC 113 Autumn Meeting 2025 was held on 17 – 21 November 2025 in Shenzhen, China. As one of China’s youngest major cities, Shenzhen is widely recognised for its strong focus on digital technologies, advanced manufacturing, and electromobility, making it a particularly suitable location for discussions on nanotechnology-enabled electrotechnical products and systems.

The meeting marked the third time that IEC TC 113 “Nanotechnology for electrotechnical products and systems” convened in Shenzhen, following invitations by the Standardization Administration of China (SAC). This continued engagement reflects the sustained interest in international nanotechnology standardisation and the close interaction between IEC technical work and China’s rapidly evolving innovation ecosystem.

Alongside the TC 113 meeting, the host organisations arranged a Nanotechnology Industry Standardization Forum, which was formally opened by Jun Li, Deputy Director General of the Shenzhen Administration for Market Regulation. The forum brought together TC 113 members and approximately 100 additional participants, predominantly from Chinese industry and research institutions, and provided a complementary platform for exchange between international standardisation experts and local stakeholders.

Within this broader framework, the TC 113 meeting provided a platform for presenting and discussing recent standardisation activities related to nano-enabled energy storage. In particular, two draft standards developed in the context of the DigiCell project were introduced to the committee and the wider expert audience. These drafts address key methodological aspects relevant to battery-related applications and reflect the project’s contribution to advancing internationally harmonised measurement and characterisation approaches.

The following sections provide a more detailed overview of these DigiCell-related draft standards and their positioning within the ongoing work programme of IEC TC 113.

The two DigiCell-related standardization projects were developed and advanced through a structured sequence of discussions and presentations within IEC TC 113, ensuring early international visibility and broad expert involvement. Both projects are being carried out within WG 11 “Nano-enabled energy storage”, which provides the technical framework for battery-related standardization activities in TC 113.

The projects were formally approved as Preliminary Work Items (PWIs) at the TC 113 London Meeting in 2024. At this stage, the scope and relevance of the proposed standards were acknowledged, enabling further elaboration of the technical concepts under the leadership of the DigiCell consortium.

At the subsequent Tokyo meeting, the focus shifted to explaining the working drafts and underlying standardization concepts in more detail. These presentations were explicitly aimed at raising awareness among international delegates and encouraging active participation in the project work. Experts were invited to provide feedback, particularly on the scope and content of the proposed Blank Detail Specification (BDS) and on the methodological requirements for Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) as a Key Control Characteristic. The Shenzhen meeting in 2025 marked the consolidation phase of both projects. The matured working drafts were presented to the committee, demonstrating that the technical content had reached a level suitable for transition from Preliminary Work Items (PWIs) to New Work Item Proposals (NPs). It was confirmed that both projects are driven by DigiCell as a cooperative European effort involving EU metrology institutes and focusing on battery testing, measurement reliability, and harmonisation.

Following the Shenzhen meeting, the DigiCell team has submitted two NPs via the German National Committee:

* IEC TS 62565-5-8, Nanomanufacturing – Product specifications – Part 5-8: Nano-enabled energy storage – Blank detail specification: Secondary batteries

* IEC TS 62607-4-18, Nanomanufacturing – Key control characteristics – Part 4-18: Nano-enabled energy storage – Electrochemical key control characteristics of lithium-ion batteries: Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy**

Voting by the IEC TC 113 P-members to approve the projects will close on 6 March 2026. The projects will be approved if a majority of the IEC TC 113 P-members vote “yes” and a minimum of four countries nominate experts for the project team to be established. In the case of approval, a first Committee Draft (CD) is expected by 18 September 2026, with a preliminary publication date for the standards of 14 January 2028 at the latest.

These submissions are built directly on the coordinated presentations delivered at the TC 113 meetings in London, Tokyo, and Shenzhen, through which the contribution of the DigiCell project to international standardisation was clearly highlighted and firmly embedded in the ongoing work programme of IEC TC 113, specifically within WG 11 “Nano-enabled energy storage devices”.

Group photo of IEC TC 113 experts participating in the Nanotechnology Industry Standardization Forum

Pre-meeting discussion prior to the opening ceremony: Jun Li, Deputy Director General of the Shenzhen Administration for Market Regulation, in conversation with Norbert Fabricius, Secretary of IEC TC 113