Today's trends toward sensible consumption and green technologies are pushing developers either to create new, "cleaner" energy sources or to return to those that meet modern requirements but have not yet received a ticket to life. The latter include the concept of using hydrogen fuel, which Australian engineers decided to use in the design of the aircraft delivering satellites into orbit. But with all the promise of this development, a lot of skeptics have already spoken critically about it. And the reason for this was the hydrogen fuel itself.
Hydrogen fuel is once again trying to become the panacea for modern energy. /Photo: nb159.ru
Quite unexpected for the scientific community was the announcement of active work in the field of hydrogen engine building specialists Australian company Hypersonix Launch Systems, which appeared even a few years ago. Moreover, they presented not just ambitious, but somewhat revolutionary concept of hypersonic aircraft-delivery of satellites into orbit. The design of the vehicle, called Delta Velos, provides for the presence of four hypersonic direct-flow Spartan air-jet engines, which run on hydrogen fuel.
Spartan hydrogen engine concept. /Photo: naked-science.ru
In fairness, it should be noted that even before the Australians worked with hydrogen fuel was quite active half a century ago. So, the Americans were the pioneers in trying to master this technology, and then the Soviet Union joined in the race. For example, domestic engineers planned to convert the Tu-155 aircraft to hydrogen fuel, but it ended up running on natural gas. Nowadays, different parts of the world are regularly trying to harness this gas for energy needs, but it is the Australians who have been the most daring in this respect.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/300122/61991/
Tu-155 - Soviet attempt to tame hydrogen fuel for civilian use. /Photo: edicthai.com
Moreover, it turned out that on the green continent the hydrogen-powered engine has been in the works for more than three decades, and Spartan itself has already made suborbital flights about ten times, but it is now the team of the young company Hypersonic has got the baton. To date, the purpose of development is to launch an artificial satellite in orbit weighing 50 kilograms: according to the idea of hypersonic vehicle Delta Velos should be a few tens of kilometers to bring it in a free flight, and the carrier will return back.
Australia plans to bring the concept to life in the next two to three years: currently only a pilot prototype is going to be assembled in a smaller scale, and the first flight of the full model should be made in 2024. Subject to successful tests and first flights, the company intends to expand its development in this direction also to create military and civilian hypersonic aircraft: according to Novate.ru editorial, such an airliner will be able to cross the Pacific Ocean two to three hours.
However, no matter how promising the Australian concept is, there are many skeptics gathered around it. For example, it is more environmentally friendly, because its exhaust is, in fact, water vapor with a fraction of nitrogen oxides impurities. In addition, it provides a very high specific thrust impulse for a jet engine, due to its high energy content and small mass of hydrogen. And some other properties of this gas allow it to increase the performance of engines.
But there are many disadvantages to producing hydrogen fuel and using it: it is tens of times more expensive than the highest quality aviation kerosene. Besides, it is difficult to store, and it cannot be poured into a tank using standard methods: even modern containers cannot completely rule out the threat of accidental leakage. And if it does happen, the combination of hydrogen and oxygen becomes extremely dangerous.
And the process of hydrogen fuel production raises questions: firstly, even taking into account the current level of scientific and technological progress its production will be economically unprofitable because of the need to use a large number of wind generators and solar batteries, as well as the use of costly distillers. In addition, the use of the latter implies the presence of residues of the so-called brine, which remains after distillation. The issues of its storage or disposal have not yet been developed. Therefore, for all ambitiousness of the Australian concept, as well as others, skeptics say that they try to implement it too early: perhaps, the time of hydrogen fuel has not come yet.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/300122/61991/
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