One of the main priorities of every aerospace company is to find ways to reduce carbon emissions and ensure that the future of the industry “goes green.” Inspired by this, the European multinational aerospace corporation, Airbus, has announced three concepts for the world’s first zero-emission aircraft. It is expected that the aircraft would be ready by 2035.
Hydrogen as the primary power source
All three concepts are unique and represent a different approach to achieving a flight without emission. Airbus wants to explore different technologies and aerodynamic configurations in all three concepts through which they will start their way in the decarbonization of the aviation industry. However, the main thing that connects all of these concepts is hydrogen as their primary power source. Airbus believes that hydrogen is the best alternative for clean aviation fuel, and it may become the best solution for many aerospace companies and other climate-related industries.
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Guillaume Faury, CEO at Airbus, expressed his excitement for developing such concepts and said that this is a historic moment for the whole aviation sector. Airbus plans to play the leading role in the most important transition. He added that he strongly believes that using hydrogen as a primary source for powering the aircraft can revolutionize the whole aerospace industry.
The three ZEROe concepts
Airbus called the tree concepts as “ZEROe,” and they are:
- A turbofan design – can carry up to 200 passengers, has a range of 2,000+ nautical miles. It is capable of operating transcontinentally, and its engine runs on hydrogen through combustion. The hydrogen will be in a liquid form and will be stored in tanks behind the rear pressure bulkhead;
- A turboprop design – can carry up to 100 passengers and can travel more than 1,000 nautical miles. It’s the perfect aircraft solution for short trips and is also powered by hydrogen rather than jet fuel;
- A blended-wing body design can carry up to 200 passengers and its wings merge with the aircraft’s main body. Of course, this aircraft concept is also based on hydrogen as its main power source.
According to Guillaume Faury, all of these concepts will help the company explore, research, develop, and evolve the design of the world’s first zero-emission aircraft, which is planned to be done by 2035.
However, Airbus’s team thinks that they will need help from the entire aviation ecosystem to achieve using hydrogen as the primary power source for this zero-emission aircraft. Besides, they will need support from the government and industrial partners, so together, they can complete the challenge of creating the aviation industry’s sustainable future.
YouTube: Airbus Unveils 3 Concepts for Zero-Emission Hydrogen Aircraft
Photo credit: The images are owned by Airbus and have been provided for press usage.
Source: Airbus Newsroom
Editorial notice: Since the report is about aircraft concepts and designs, it’s likely that the visuals presented are not photographs but computer-rendered pictures and videos.
