European aerospace firm Destinus has won grant funding to design and test hydrogen-propelled jets capable of supersonic flight – jets the company says could cut flight times between Australia and Europe to around four hours.
Destinus and Spanish engine manufacturer ITP Aero partnered in June last year to build a hydrogen engine test facility with the support of the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA).
This latest investment, two grants totalling €27 million by the Spanish Ministry of Science from the Ministry of Science’s Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial, will boost the facility’s capacity.
The test facility, supported by €12 million from INTA, will be built near Madrid, and will house Destinus’ protoype hydrogen-fuelled aircraft.
A second grant (€15 million) will fund research into innovative propulsion system solutions using liquid hydrogen to produce aircraft capable of flying at supersonic speeds – a speed band typically only used by military aircraft.
The benefits of hydrogen fuelled aircraft would be myriad: alongside reducing aircraft emissions to essentially nil, hydrogen has higher energy by mass (though it must be compressed or turned into a liquid to realise these benefits), and the raw material used to make hydrogen fuel is water – which is returned back to the atmosphere as the only by-product.
Destinus is developing a prototype hypersonic hydrogen-fuelled plane that it hopes could in theory get passengers from Sydney to Frankfurt in four hours and 15 minutes. While it may sound fanciful, the company has successfully flight-tested two prototype aircraft.
That said, hydrogen aircraft are very much in their infancy, and plagued by problems such as the hefty storage tanks needed to supply enough fuel, as well as issues around ensuring that the hydrogen supplied is actually green – that is, that it was actually produced using renewable electricity rather than energy derived from fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, the last supersonic passenger plane to take to the skies was Concorde more than 20 years ago, which was grounded after a devastating accident.
Nonetheless, airlines are already buying into the concept of supersonic passenger flight. Last year, American Airlines committed to purchasing 20 Overture Jets, developed by Boom Supersonic, supersonic passenger aircraft powered by Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF).
In line with its Plan Nacional del Hidrógeno, the Spanish government has invested heavily in hydrogen propulsion as part of its Economic Resilience and Transformation Plan, with support from the European Commission’s economic recovery plan NextGenerationEU.
Spain’s Iberian peninsula in particular is tipped by the World Economic Forum to become the hydrogen superpower of Europe, thanks to its abundant renewable electricity resources, an unusually flexible electricity grid, existing in-country demand, and a well-developed energy market infrastructure including ports and natural gas pipelines extending into the rest of Europe.
Hydrogen is also a major cornerstone of the European Commission’s plan to secure Europe’s energy supply and wean off oil-rich states.
Along with standard R&D, Destinus says it will be flight testing a hydrogen post-combustor jet engine in short order.
“We are delighted to have been awarded these grants, especially because they are a clear sign that Destinus is aligned with the strategic lines of Spain and Europe to advance hydrogen flight,” said Davide Bonetti, Destinus’ Vice President of Business Development and Products.
“For deep tech companies like us, access to these EU recovery funds is essential to carry out advanced research and accelerate the innovation needed to be competitive on a global scale. With these grants, hydrogen-based solutions for aeronautical mobility will be one step closer to becoming a reality.”
