Hydrogen Powered Aircraft Engines
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it is a fact that global warming continues to increase due to environmental pollution and excessive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the greenhouse gas effect. It is another fact that the number of flights and airplanes, especially in aviation and transportation, also causes carbon dioxide-based pollution. When you add the automotive and transportation sector to this situation, it shows us that these carbon-based emission actions created by human hands continue to increase.
Due to the temperature increases and droughts in our world in recent years, the balances on earth have started to change. These temperature changes caused global warming. Global warming is defined as the increase in the average world temperature in the parts of the atmosphere close to the earth's surface, either naturally or by human influence.
It is another fact that global warming continues to increase especially in the 20th and 21st centuries due to environmental pollution and excessive carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and the greenhouse gas effect.
It is another fact that there is also a carbon dioxide-based pollution left to nature by the number of flights and airplanes, especially in aviation and transportation.
When you add the automotive and transportation sector to this situation, it is another fact that these carbon-based emission actions created by human hands continue to increase.
Although countries are trying to prevent this situation on land, especially in the automotive sector, with electric or hybrid models, it is another fact that we are still at the beginning of the issue.
It is another fact that the Covid 19 and Ukraine wars, especially in recent years, have somehow slowed down this technological revolution in the energy, heating and transportation sector.
In order to somehow reduce fuels such as oil and coal, which we call fossil fuels, new studies have been initiated in the aviation sector, especially on engines. Some of these are especially related to the engines used in passenger aircraft. The development of these passenger aircraft engines to run on alternative fuels constitutes the basis of the studies on this subject.
Engineers at GE Aviation and Safran Aircraft Engines are working to modify a GE Passport jet engine. They are working to completely overhaul the combustion chamber, fuel system and control system to make the engine compatible and operable with liquid hydrogen fuel.
In the near future, 4 GE passport model engines, which can run on hydrogen, will be mounted on the rear top of the fuselage of an Airbus A380 and start flight trials.
If all goes according to plan, by the mid-2030s we will see airplanes carrying passengers and producing no carbon emissions during flight.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and does not produce CO2 emissions when it burns. We can also see this as the white water vapor left behind by rockets going into space.
Storing the Hydrogen required for hydrogen-powered systems on board an airplane is a major engineering challenge. If hydrogen is to be transported in sufficient quantities for the journey of any passenger plane, it would take up more storage space than the entire airplane.
For this purpose, hydrogen needs to be stored in liquid form, just as it is used in space travel. This means cooling the hydrogen to be used as fuel to about minus 253 degrees Celsius.
In a world first, British engine manufacturer Rolls Royce has announced that it has succeeded in powering a modern aircraft engine using hydrogen as fuel. Rolls-Royce noted that this work was carried out with the AE 2100-A aircraft engine.
Boeing also announced that it is testing hydrogen fuel cells in its ScanEagle3 military unmanned aerial vehicle.
In addition to these efforts, Airbus has announced the development of a hydrogen-powered fuel cell engine called ZEROe. The propulsion system is considered one of the potential solutions to equip the zero-emission aircraft that will enter service by 2035.
There are two ways hydrogen can be used as a power source for aircraft propulsion. The first way is by burning hydrogen in a gas turbine, such as fuel oil or LPG. The second way uses fuel cells to convert hydrogen into electricity to power a propeller motor. A hydrogen gas turbine can also be combined with fuel cells (PEM - Proton Exchange Membrane) instead of batteries in a hybrid-electric architecture. The electricity generated is used in aircraft engines to drive the propellers and thus the airplanes.
The trials of hydrogen-powered engines are being carried out separately for different engine types such as turbo fan and turbo rop engines.
It is a fact that hydrogen-fueled systems, which are considered to be used primarily in small airplanes, are still in their infancy.
In addition to the fuel cell engines used in passenger planes and automobiles, it is possible to use the same systems in UAVs and UCAVs using turbo prop engines. For this reason, it is another fact that Turkey, which is developing today's UAV and UCAV technologies, can increase the duration of their stay in the air or the amount of payload they can carry by applying these engines to these systems in the future.
As a country, it is another fact that it is of great benefit to start R&D studies on these issues now, to research and develop new technologies in the aviation sector, such as electric vehicles, and to start using the experiences gained in UAVs and UCAVs.
Such engines are not only used in airplanes and cars, but also in ship and submarine systems.
In fact, with such engines, in the near future, instead of turbo fan engines that run on natural gas and generate electricity in the industry from the energy to be produced by solar and wave energy, we can provide energy production with engines that run on hydrogen and generate electricity, and in this way, we can contribute to the electricity of our industry and cities.
