HIGH ON HYDROGEN

Hydrogen fuel presents a transformative opportunity for sus-tainable aviation, offering zero-emission potential. With industry giants like Airbus and Embraer leading advancements, its deployment remains a decade away, observes ATUL CHANDRA

- ATUL CHANDRA

The use of Hydrogen sources of fuel and attendant propulsion technologies in aviation is now acknowledged as one of the most innovative and disruptive methods of meeting the aviation industry's future sustainability goals. Fossil-based liquid fuel has been the primary energy source powering flight since the dawn of aviation. This is likely to remain the case for another decade for aircraft that can seat more than 20 passengers and cargo. However, with the aviation industry now heavily focussed on transitioning to renewable energy sources to reduce life cycle CO2 emissions, work on the development of hydrogen-powered aircraft of the future and its ecosystem is gathering pace. Hydrogen as on-board fuel or energy will allow for the complete elimination of CO2 emissions in flight and along the entire energy life-cycle if produced from renewable sources.

At the present moment, however, the aviation sector has no in-service experience with such aircraft as they have not yet been developed. Interestingly, over 96% of hydrogen produced today comes from fossil fuels—mostly natural gas. Hydrogen Combustion Aircraft powered by turbine engines using liquid hydrogen fuel have been proven feasible for regional, short-haul and long-haul aircraft. However, the integration of hydrogen as a fuel will be an extremely complex problem to solve, and hence, aircraft powered by hydrogen will have a very different design from aircraft as we know then today.