The aviation industry is estimated to contribute around 2.5% of global carbon emissions, which may seem lower than expected – particularly when stacked against road transport. However, while huge leaps have been made to adopt cleaner fuel to power buses, trains, trucks, tractors and a range of off-road vehicles, the challenges to decarbonise our skies to hit ‘Jet Zero’ by 2050 remain significant.
A key issue is that the technology is currently limited for making hydrogen dense enough for aerospace application – and it’s a challenge that has affected scale-up in the maritime sector too. The task is to replace something that is moderately dense with a workable alternative. A few tonnes of fuel on an aircraft allows it to fly halfway around the world, be refilled very quickly and crucially, it doesn’t occupy space that is needed for passengers or cargo. The gravimetric efficiency – the amount of energy created when the jet fuel is burned in comparison with how much an airplane weighs – is relatively high.
In order for hydrogen to be viable for large passenger aircraft, there is a requirement to overcome the fact that, in its gaseous form, hydrogen is up to 1,000 times less dense.
The hydrogen opportunity in aerospace
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