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Congress:Former Member:Ian Soutar
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Ian Soutar
Profile page for FORMER New Energy Congress member Ian Soutar
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Contents |
Overview
- Representation
- Owner of Microsec R&D Inc. in Victoira B.C. doing energy research on marine EV
- New Energy Congress
- Joined August 23, 2008. Ratified Dec. 2, 2008. Left Mar. 1, 2010 "I am really busy with multiple contracts and university work and really do not have the time to carry out my duties."
- Committees
- Electrical Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Chemistry
- Experience in the field of Alt Energy
- Worked at the National Research Council's Division of Energy in the 1980s. Solar thermal testing and some solar voltaic research was carried out. The division was closed when the Conservative Brian Mulrooney became Prime Minister of Canada. My training came through the NRC labs. Later I worked in private industry for Norsun Solar in Manotick Ontario designing and testing reverse thermosyphon based thermal solar collectors. In 1986 we formed Microsec Research and Development doing industrial automation. Since 2006 we have been involved in hydrogen fuel cell assisted vehicles, especially boats. In 2007 our group along with Jim Harrington of AGO Environmental built Canada's first hydrogen assisted sailboat.
- Education
- 2 years of 3 year General Science at U of Waterloo ... business got too active to continue University.
- National Research Council of Canada 1 year on-the-job training in solar thermal and solar voltaic labs in 1982.
- Areas of Specialty
- Solar; Decomposition of water; Hydrogen; Marine Electric; Battery Chemistry
Website
Energy Snapshots
- Current Activies
- 2008
University of Victoria providing industrial liason and electronic assisstance to students and researchers. Hydrogen, Solar and Battery operated device design is demonstrated to students to encourage alternate energy based designs. This year we did work with the students to create a hydrogen fuel cell stack assisted sailboat that integrated two stacks using only one control system.
Microsec R&D Inc. work ... Electronic control system for fuel cell stack operation. This work is ongoing since there are challenges to squeezing more performance out of fuel cells. Research work is being carried out on storage batteries and hydrogen generation.
- 2007
Canada's first h2 assisted sailboat using fuel cell stack and metal hydride storage ... ongoing development.
- 2005-6
Worked in the University of Victoria in the field of robotic fish and a bionic inner ear. A patent was applied for the bionic ear in 2007.
- Past Activies
Ian Soutar worked for the National Research Council in Ottawa (1982-1983) instrumenting solar energy collection systems. This provided for on-the-job work with people in the alternate energy fields.
Ian founded Microsec R&D in 1986 to provide product design services for inventors and industry. Ian is responsible for microcontroller based products and signal processing / control systems. Past designs include a virtual reality fishing machine, a portable DNA analysis machine, a pocket-sized cardiogram device, spread spectrum radio tranceivers and several robotic industrial inspection tools with cameras and manipulators. In 1998 Ed Haslam became a partner in Microsec R&D. Ed has contributed to many of the designs of the last 10 years. Current work at Microsec involves hydrogen fuel cell control systems. We are also working with battery chemistry improvements and hydrogen generation systems as well.
- Patents
Ian has received 6 patents for his designs. Most of the patents were based on industrial contracts with a few personal interest patents. These include several agricultural patents for machines that process grains for animal feed. There is a radio boosting antenna, a wind protection system for microphones, hotel security systems and a fishing device patent.
Current Research
- Marine Solar / Hydrogen Driven Electric Motors
Microsec R&D Inc. is working with AGO Environmental Inc. to develop solar electric, hydrogen electric and hybrid systems for driving boats. Last year we launched Canada's first hydrogen assisted sailboat. This year we are building a more powerful version of the same sailboat drive system.
I also have a small cabin cruiser called the "Pepper Pot" in the Victoria harbour that is solar / electric. It is a really tiny boat, about 18 feet long that will comfortably sit 4 people in the cabin. This will be the test platform for a number of battery experiments to find the best way to store energy collected by the solar panels on the boat. I do enjoy crossing the harbour in my little boat and visiting the marine gas station to get some orange juice or a chocolate bar. It used to cost me 12-20 dollars a trip for gas. Now it is free!
We are about to try Nickel Iron batteries in the Pepper Pot boat to increase the range. The batteries will probably out last the boat if we use Ni-Fe batteries.
- Nickel-Iron Battery Chemistry Improvement
I am a great believer in studying the History of Technology to look for existing solutions. Sometimes people forget what works!
The Nickel Iron battery was developed by Edison in 1901. It was then used in electric cars such as the Baker Electric or Detroit Electric cars starting in about 1912. Many of these batteries are still in use in the mining industries of Europe where they run underground power tools and transportation trains. The batteries often last for 40 years of hard work. There are slight disadvantages of Ni-Fe chemistry due to the high internal resistance as compared to other storage battery chemistries. But NOTHING lasts like the old Edison Storage Cell design of 1901. Worth a second look at this technology for sure
At the University of Victoria Dr. Robert O'Brien has invented a magnetic process that uses very simple principles to reduce the electrolyte resistance in batteries by a factor of 15 times. He simply arranges the magnetic field so that stirring of the liquid electrolyte occurs during charge and discharge. He has a patent on the process and is happy to work with Microsec to do some tests. This method boosts the current output by about 30 percent and reduces the charge time as well. We are in the process of applying this to the old Edison Cell design of 1901.
If you go to http://www.veva.bc.ca/ you can see and read about the Detroit Electric Car that was in Victoria BC Canada from 1912 to 1955 ... still running on the original storage battery! The car got sold in the mid 50s and went to the interior of the province. But that same battery was still running up until 1997 when it was retired because the battery case cracked. At retirement it was still running at 80% capacity. 85 years on a storage battery!! This industrial battery production process was purchased from the Edison Storage Battery Company in 1972 by the Exide Battery Co. They shelved the "everlasting" battery design. The Detroit Electric car is currently on display at the B.C. Provincial Museum in Victoria in 2008.
- This is an invitation to try the technology
The Ni-Fe battery is no longer patented! Can someone in North America put it back into production please! China has already put it back into production but the extreme weight of large house and transportation batteries makes it impractical to import them for everyday use. We would be happy to add the magnetic technology if it works. Even without this modern improvement, the Ni-Fe battery has the most ideal characteristics for solar electric backup. Too bad the perfect battery is out of production in both Canada and the USA. We also think this battery might be ideal for solar boat use. With boats you are not climbing hills so there is not much a penalty for weight. In addition boats need weight ballast to get them to sit in the water properly. Just replace the lead or concrete weight with batteries and the weight becomes an asset. For experimentation work they can be imported from China and Romania.
Solar boats my be the ideal transportation application of the Ni-Fe battery. Hopefully others out there in countries that offer locally made Ni-Fe batteries will try them out in marine applications.
Contact
Ian Soutar <isoutar {at} microsec.net>
Victoria, BC, Canada
See also
- Global Top 100 Clean Energy Technologies
- Technology Ranking Criteria
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