Aviation: startups test green hydrogen – 06/18/2023 – Market

On a sunny morning in March of this year, a small blue and white plane took off from an airfield in Moses Lake, Washington state, USA. The plane flew for 15 minutes at an altitude of 3,500 feet and then safely returned to its home base.

The flight may have been short, but for the company that developed the plane, Universal Hydrogen, it was revolutionary. The aircraft, a De Havilland Dash 8-300 turboprop nicknamed Lightning McClean, had a normal engine and a much more unusual one: it is an electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.

During the flight, the plane largely used only the hydrogen-powered engine. According to Universal Hydrogen, this made it by far the largest aircraft ever flown using primarily hydrogen energy.

For the American company founded in 2020, it was also another step on the way to proving that hydrogen energy is a viable way to decarbonize air transport.

“Our first flight with by far the largest hydrogen fuel cell aircraft to ever take to the sky represents an important milestone for the industry, especially for the next new design Airbus and Boeing commercial aircraft,” says the executive. head of Universal, Paul Eremenko.

Two months earlier, the British-American startup ZeroAvia had performed a successful test flight of a smaller propeller plane powered by hydrogen fuel cells, taking off from Gloucestershire in southwest England.

Now the two companies are among a small group of innovators trying to create something different in an industry still dominated by Airbus and Boeing.

Its hydrogen plans are ambitious, as aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize. The sector is responsible for about 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, not counting non-carbon effects such as nitrogen oxide and contrails – the vapor trails left in the wake of an airplane.

Manufacturers and airlines have already committed to achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050 through a mix of new fuel technologies, including the use of sustainable aviation fuels and hydrogen, as well as aircraft, engines and more efficient air traffic.

But there are those who argue that green hydrogen, produced by breaking up water using electrolysers that run on renewable energy, is the only technology that can produce truly zero-emissions flights.

There are still major technical and engineering challenges, however, that will have to be overcome for green hydrogen to become a commercial reality. And even hydrogen’s biggest advocates admit that initially it will only be viable for use in smaller planes, on shorter duration flights.

Liquid hydrogen, which is easier to store, needs to be kept at -253°C. Otherwise, it evaporates. For this reason, the tanks needed to contain it are larger and heavier than conventional fuel tanks, and this affects aircraft autonomy and capacity. Meanwhile, hydrogen fuel cells also pose serious challenges.

In addition, investments will be needed to develop the supply of green hydrogen, as well as storage and airport infrastructure.

Still, Universal’s Eremenko — a former chief technology officer at Airbus and United Technologies — says hydrogen is the right path for aviation to take.

He says that Universal is not competing with companies like Airbus or Boeing, but trying to solve a problem faced by all aircraft manufacturers: “How to get hydrogen from the point of production to the airport and how to put it in the planes, without an investment massive, global and simultaneous capital to infrastructure”.

The mainstay of Universal’s business model is based on delivering its hydrogen in modular capsules to be used by single-aisle Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

The company initially intends to sell conversion kits for regional aircraft, including its modular hydrogen capsules that will be stored in the rear of the fuselage. An electric fuel cell powered power train will replace the existing turboprop engines.

Eremenko says this system will cost less than an entirely new design and will take less time to get certified by regulators. He suggests that by 2025/26 it will already be possible to adapt regional commercial aircraft for use with hydrogen.

But the mainstay of Universal’s business model is supplying its hydrogen in modular capsules to be used by Boeing and Airbus single-aisle planes. Eremenko points out that the technology will be compatible with existing networks of transport planes and with airport cargo handling equipment.

The planes would not need to undergo a radical makeover. Instead of being powered by electrical energy from fuel cells, they will have jet engines that can burn hydrogen.

ZeroAvia also intends to install its engines on existing planes, to simplify approval for regulars and reduce time to market.

For the test flight in January, the company fitted a 19-seat Dornier 228 propeller plane with a full-size prototype hydrogen-electric engine in the left wing. The tanks that store the hydrogen and fuel cell power generation systems were housed inside the cabin.

Val Miftakhov, who founded ZeroAvia in 2017, says its first commercial flights are planned for the end of 2025 and that a commercial plane with between 40 and 80 seats will be in operation by 2027.

Paul Hutton, chief executive of Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, also thinks that starting with an existing plane is the quickest and safest way to prove that your new hydrogen propulsion system works. That way, he explains, “the only thing you’re changing is the propulsion system.”

Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, which initially grew out of Cranfield University, has spent the past three decades designing and certifying complex aircraft modifications for major original equipment manufacturers such as Boeing, Airbus and Rolls-Royce. More recently, however, it has begun to develop a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system.

In April, the company announced its merger with Britten-Norman, the British maker of the Islander, a nine-seat light aircraft widely used for short regional flights. The purpose, according to Cranfield, is to create “the world’s first fully integrated, zero-emission subregional aircraft” to enter into operation in 2026.

The company will adapt the Islander to operate on fuel cell power using gaseous hydrogen, before modifying a plane using a liquid hydrogen power cell based powertrain. Your ultimate ambition is to design your own plane.

Hutton considers that the merged group is well positioned precisely because it is situated between original equipment manufacturers and pure startups: “We have that startup behavior, but the credibility that comes from being there 30 years ago and now, too, as a manufacturer original equipment.”