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from the the-Hindenberg-steam-engine-crossbreed dept.
‘They said we were eccentrics’: the UK team developing clean aviation fuel:
“Anyone passing would have wondered why these people were staring at a pipe and whooping and laughing,” says Bobby Sethi, associate professor of gas turbine combustion at Cranfield University. “But we were almost certainly the only people in the world right then burning anything without producing CO2.”
[...] “We were able to demonstrate successful ignition and safe combustion of pure hydrogen and air at high temperature and pressure – producing no carbon emissions,” he says. Even if, he adds, the passing layperson would have only seen a pipe and some steam.
[...] Sethi recalls the scepticism of even five years ago, when he was pursuing funding for the hydrogen research project, known as Enable H2: “They said we were eccentrics. Now they’re queueing up to be on our advisory board.”
There are broadly three strands of work that the aviation industry is frantically investigating for an environmentally acceptable future. One is to create greener fuels for the large aircraft currently in service. A second is electric flight, which appears feasible for smaller aircraft and short-haul hops. And a third is hydrogen.
Two projects pioneered at Cranfield are using hydrogen in the form of fuel cells to power electric motors and propel planes: ZeroAvia flew a six-seater from here last September, and hopes to scale up the technology for commercial short-haul flights in the coming decades. Another, Project Fresson, is planning to use fuel cells for a green, short-hop passenger service around the Orkney islands as soon as 2023.
But the ambitions for direct combustion of hydrogen are on a bigger scale; whether a radically different plane and propulsion system could replace the modern, paraffin-fuelled passenger jet. Which is where Sethi’s research comes in.
Nothing yet in the sheds looks anything like a plane. The rig here is a unique facility, Sethi says, assembled to show that hydrogen can be clean, safe and efficient for aviation, and produce data showing the optimum temperature and pressure to minimise other harmful emissions such as nitrogen oxides or NOx, a family of highly poisonous gases.
Not the only scientists looking for controlled ignition of hydrogen. What's described still seems a long way away from something that produces thrust, which is the ultimate need. However, technology usually advances in small steps, and that's fine as long as there's an ultimately reachable goal.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday August 19 2021, @10:04PM (1 child)
True, but there are plenty of people working on alternative storage methods. You only need high pressure and/or cryogenics if you're trying to store it as a dense gas or liquid. If it's dissolved in a solid or liquid carrier instead, then you reduce mass density, but may greatly increase volumetric density.
Most recently I just heard about Plasma Kinetics in a Sandy Monroe video. The name doesn't seem to have anything obvious to do with the technology, which is a thin hydrogen-absorbing film wound into a continuous loop cartridge sort of like a giant 8-track cartridge.
If I understand correctly it will absorb hydrogen even from low-concentration sources like sewer-gas, and release it when it spools past a laser light "reader head". It sounds like the energy density of the cartridges (by mass or volume) is currently a bit better than cutting edge lithium-ion batteries, though as an added benefit it's non-flammable. But it sounds like they've just reached the point of being ready to bring the technology to market, and who knows what future advances in the technology might hold.
And of course they're hardly the only ones pursuing such alternative methods of hydrogen-storage.
Still, it seems like biofuels, syngas, etc. would offer a much more immediate solution for long-haul vehicles like airplanes, trains, and ships. Such fuel could be used in existing vehciles, and so long as it's synthesized from atmospheric CO2 it's carbon neutral, which is all that really matters. Well aside from all the "normal" toxic pollution from hydrocarbon engines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @05:16AM
So you're saying one day I'll carry my phone in my back pocket and pass gas to recharge it?