New Hydrogen Jet Engine Will Change Flight Forever

this is the new hydrogen jet engine from Rolls-Royce it is powered by hydrogen made from renewable wind and tidal electricity from the orkney islands in Scotland in this video we'll see how it works see it in operation and check out the plans for it to be used in commercial planes the new jet engine from Rolls-Royce is the first modern jet engine to run on hydrogen however it isn't the first ever jet engine to run on hydrogen in fact back in 1957 NASA flew a plane using hydrogen for 20 minutes above Lake Erie in North America NASA's plane actually used kerosene jet engines for takeoff before switching to hydrogen for cruising and the Soviet Union also flew a hydrogen plane in 1988. the motivation for these was the fear that kerosene jet fuel was running out and they liked the fact that hydrogen planes were able to fly at higher altitudes although details are limited it appears that the Soviet plane was actually the first to fly using only hydrogen though the project was stopped with the fall of the Soviet Union considering these planes were developed decades ago there's been considerable Improvement in technology since they flew the new jet engine from Rolls-Royce is one example of this it operates much like a convention jet engine by first taking in air and compressing it using a series of compressors fuel is then added to the compressed air and burnt in a combustion chamber creating a high speed Hot Gas stream this hot gas is expelled through a nozzle at the back of the engine producing a powerful forward thrust some of this power at the back of the engine is also used to drive an internal turbine which is what spins the compressor at the front via a central shaft turbojet engines are actually just a type of gas turbine and variations of these are used on many commercial planes known as turbofans and turbo props these also use the power at the back of the engine to turn a turbine but they then use some of it to spin a fan or propeller at the front this draws in more air and increases the efficiency at slower flight speeds although the main ideas of a hydrogen jet engine are the same as a standard jet engine there are some changes that need to be made the first thing to change range would be the fueling system such as the pumps fuel lines and fuel injectors so that liquid hydrogen can be converted into gas and distributed into the engine the combustion chamber where the hydrogen and air mixture ignites also needs to be a slightly different shape to optimize the combustion and because hydrogen Burns hotter than current jet fuel new engine parts must also be developed to withstand the higher temperatures requiring new Coatings or materials to be used finally because hydrogen Burns 10 times faster than conventional jet fuel new Control Systems will be needed to make sure the Flames are stable so that is an overview of how it works now let's see it in action but first if you're into free interesting content I think you'll really like the sponsor of this video morning Brew instead of aimlessly scrolling through random dry news stories get an engaging email newsletter from morning Brew every day it covers topics from Science and Technology to business and finance and you can use the link below to sign up for free in just 15 seconds recent stories like this one on EB prices being slashed or this one on a pay cut for Goldman Sachs CEO have made my morning routine significantly more interesting so stop wasting time scrolling through news feeds and sign up for morningbrew for free using my link below now this is the Rolls-Royce jet engine running at the test site in England it is actually a modified version of an existing turbo prop and you can even see the water it emits forming a nearby pool of water in this other video you can see the engine heating up as it runs with a trail of hot gas being exhausted out of the back with these developments in hydrogen engines being made we may soon benefit from the CO2 free flights that they can enable however there are some drawbacks for hydrogen-powered planes with the most obvious one being the challenges with storage this is why the planes from NASA and the Soviet Union as well as many planes planned for the future use Liquid hydrogen because hydrogen is much more energy dense when it is a liquid rather than a gas the issue is it requires extremely low temperatures of minus 253 degrees Celsius also although the actual liquid hydrogen is nearly three times more energy dense than kerosene jet fuel by weight when the tanks are included the hydrogen fuel system weighs about one and a half times as much as a kerosene fuel system not only that it would also take up about four times as much space and the usual method of storing fuel in the plane's wings become impractical however not to be stopped Engineers from around the world have been looking at innovative ways to deal with these challenges this has led to some interesting designs from the UK's Aerospace technology Institute like this one which keeps the hydrogen in a large tank at the back this tank is also highly insulated and has a cooling system built in to keep the hydrogen as a liquid also because the tank adds a lot of weight to the back an extra Wing known as a Canard is placed at the front to help balance the plane a larger concept has also been designed where additional hydrogen tanks are stored below the wings giving the plane a very unique look it is hoped that these extra tanks will enable the plane to fly at nearly 6 000 nautical miles another challenge for hydrogen flight is of course sourcing the hydrogen as it is still too expensive to get it all from renewable energy sources also although no CO2 emissions come out of hydrogen jet engines because hydrogen Burns hotter it actually produces more nitrous oxide emissions as you can imagine there'll likely be many innovative solutions to both of these challenges in the years to come it'll also be interesting to see how hydrogen gas turbines are used in other methods of Transport like tanks and Naval vessels which have previously used them due to their high power density as you're still watching please subscribe to the channel because I think you'll like some of the other videos that I make and don't forget to check out morning Brew whilst you're down there using my free link otherwise I think you're going to enjoy this video which looks at a new propeller design that is revolutionizing transport

Channel: Ziroth

Views: 668,839

Keywords: Science, Engineering, STEM, Electric, Zero, Tesla, News, Research, EV, Battery

Id: BIUfiZJiPbM

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023