Professor Brian Steele

BRIAN STEELE was one of the founding fathers of the field of solid state ionics, the study of the movement of charged atoms in solids, including the study of the active materials for advanced batteries, fuel cells and sensors. It is a subject of increasing importance because of growing concerns over the generation and storage of electricity and the impact it has on the global environment.

Brian Charles Hilton Steele was born in Lancashire and educated at the King George V Grammar School in Southport. After service in the RAF from 1947 until 1949, he studied chemistry at the University of Birmingham, graduating in 1952.

He started his career in ceramics, when he joined the British Ceramics Research Association in Stoke-on-Trent, where he worked as a scientific officer until 1955. His interest in solid state ionics began in 1957 while he was working in London with the Morgan Crucible Company, which made technical ceramics.

In that same year Steele left Morgan Crucible and joined the department of metallurgy at Imperial College, London, to become a Nuffield investigator undertaking postgraduate study in solid electrolytes, under the supervision of Professor Ben Alcock.

In 1965 he was awarded a doctorate for his work on galvanic cells for thermodynamic studies and joined the academic staff at Imperial, where he stayed until his retirement as Professor of Materials Science in 1994.

His early work concerned new materials for application in solid state sensors to measure oxygen in the flue gases from industrial boilers. These devices were the precursors for the exhaust sensors found in every modern car. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was associated with the development of lithium ion batteries and became heavily involved in the development of novel cathodes where ions can be electrochemically inserted into an existing crystal structure.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Steele was one of very few around the world to champion the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), a clean, efficient and very flexible high-temperature device for the electrochemical conversion of fuels, such as hydrogen, into electrical power. He was instrumental in the development of the SOFC in Europe.

His first paper appeared in 1955, dealing with diffusion in chrome-magnesite bricks, and after that date he published more than 200 papers, the majority dealing with either high energy-density batteries or fuel cells.

In the latter part of his career Steele became increasingly convinced that the most sensible route for the commercialisation of SOFCs was to lower the temperature needed for the operation of the fuel cell from close to 1,000C to temperatures below 600C, where the problems of sealing and durability are ameliorated.

He began working on materials for these lower-temperature fuel cells and spent many years persuading companies around the world to adopt these materials for use in their SOFC programmes. This culminated in the formation of Ceres Power, a company that was spun out from Imperial with Steele as its driving force, his ideas being translated into prototype devices.

During his research career, Steele received many awards, including the Schoenbein Medal for SOFC research, awarded in 1994 by the European SOFC society, and the Kroll Medal of the Institute of Mining Metallurgy and Materials for Metallurgical and Ceramic Chemistry in 1995. He was appointed MBE for services to materials science in 1996.

Steele served on several advisory panels for the European Commission and for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He was one of the founders of the Journal of Solid State Ionics, and for many years he was co-ordinating editor for Europe.

He was a consultant to fuel-cell companies such as Sulzer in Switzerland and Siemens in Germany, and others including Air Products in the United States, British Oxygen (now the BOC Group) and Exxon.

Steele contributed fully to the undergraduate teaching in the department for many years, and was a popular invited speaker to other institutes and organisations.

During his career at Imperial College, he supervised nearly 40 doctorate students. He kept in touch with many of them both professionally and personally, and many returned to Imperial from all over the world to participate in the Festschrift held to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2000.

Steele and his wife and family spent many summers in their house in southern France. He was a keen walker and loved to walk in the Surrey hills and in his native northern England.

He is survived by his wife, Ruth, and their daughter and two sons.

Professor Brian Steele, MBE, was born on May 10, 1929. He died of cancer on August 11, 2003, aged 74.