This breakthrough is what happens when engineers look at a problem at a system level! Amazing work. Also, don't forget to check out the interactive courses from Brilliant! Use my link at brilliant.org/ziroth/ for 30 days FREE and 20% off a subscription!
Another energy storage device for even the large electric planes I'm conceptualizing for the market, ones that'll be in sized with like the Boeing 737 or larger, like up to even 747 size. Don't worry, I've figured out a power delivery system that'll be in place of the motors needed to even get the plane airborne.
As an Engineering Phsicist by education, I truly appreciate everything the turbochargers can offer. The best thing they offer in cars or airplanes are red-orange blowtorches under the cowlings. Hence, my Son's dead Subaru WRX in my driveway. That I could barbecue on the hood for ~2 hours after engine shutdown. I've flown in the back of several turbocharged twin-engined Cessnas. 340, 414 and 421. During the day everything looks "cool"/fine. At night, the terrifying orange-red glow from behind the engine in front of a 1/16" stainless steel firewall. Does not inspire confidence in engineering, design or longevity. No haters please. Properly maintained twin Cessnas are excellent if you fly them carefully, take care of the ~310-375 HP engines that are 285HP in a N/A setup. And fly them as far below gross weight as possible. The problem is they are cheap to buy and very expensive to maintain. And people overload them all of the time. Because? If there's 6 or 7 seats. Then that's what you can put in their spacious cabins. Right? Plus everybody's baggage in the nose for the vacation trip to a high altitude airport.
@@wanderingbufoon this comment makes no sense. The usage of a turbocharger to increase power was insanely creative. And it doesn't replace displacement, any displacement engine could use a turbocharger. It increases efficiency. Why waste energy out your exhaust when you can recover it, use it to compress your intake charge so you can burn more fuel.
Right like come on now, if it was, "insane" it would be broadcast like pearl harbor, moon landing or the end of world wars... The only thing insane is the need for this creator to pay his bills.. just get a normal job and be productive, youtube is a productive diverter... Like for real
Haven't high temp fuel cells always been more efficient? That was the big issue in fuel cell development early on. You could get plenty of reliability and power from a high temperature fuel cell, but your car had to heat up to work properly. Also, power from fuel cells has never been the issue. It's always been that hydrogen is slippery. It can leak out of most fittings and can even squeeze in between molecules of solid objects.
@karlwithak. 37 gigatons. 74 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide was put into the atmosphere last year. An all time high btw. In order to plant enough trees just to stabilize the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, every person on the planet would need to plant 138 trees. So effectively, humanity is tossing gigatons of trees into the atmosphere. I hardly think it's inconsequential. What bothers me are sensational environmental pieces that make people passive. They think "Oh it's ok, we've almost got this fixed." So there's nothing to worry about.
I guess aviation as a target is a lot more sensible then. Commercial aviation has a lot more maintenance and regulation for it's fuel and fuel tanks already so the premium for fuel tanks with better seals won't be so impactful. Once the planes turn on, they're on for at least an hour up to 12 hours so no short on-off cycling like a car. Airports being the only places where to tank up will make the supporting infrastructure easier: there might be hundreds more gas pumps than airports. Finally, unloading the unspent hydrogen from landed planes if they will also be feasible with the airport infrastructure.
No mention of hydrogen storage? How much bleed off is there? Is the tank in an aircraft somewhere in the fuselage? The tech sounds good but there is always the problem of keeping the fuel at super low temperatures.
I wanted to focus on the fuel cell here as hydrogen storage has been covered many times before - but there may be follow up videos on the other developments in ZeroAvias power train to come!
@@ZirothTech It is a highly interesting concept they are pursuing. Efficiency of fuel cells go up with higher temperature. the band gap in the catalyst is easier to overcome. Using a turbo as cogeneration, is proper engineering = using the available waste energy for something useful. Clearly this is not a "one gimmick" startup.
It does not matter how well any hydrogen system operates. The massive problem hydrogen has is its production storage and distribution. Considering is propensity to permiate just about any material these are massive.
@karlwithak.even if they were, fossil fuels have a definite end, it will come, no matter what. It's just not sustainable, dirty in acquisition and very wasteful and inefficient with energy in general. Shit makes no sense => maybe we should look for alternatives...
True true and true, it's money or/and research to get there. Now let me ask you, how can you replace natural gas or just petroleum/gas. You can't replace the cars for electric, not feasible for any grid in the world. Same for natural gas. Even though storage is a problem ,it's a space problem, not an energy to compress the problem as hydrogen has a massively lower molar density, so it's very easily compressable.
@@bernardomacara6284 Wrong. EVs can be supplied by the grid in most countries with only small improvements. It is just like the increase in capacity required bt the widespread adoption of air conditioning in the US in the 1960s.
@@bernardomacara6284 By what stretch of the petroleum industiy's fears do you (they) reason that the world cannot replace their admittiedly extensive and expensive distribution network with the other network that is largely already in place? Further developement of home solar and localised wind generation is already having a large effect and scaring the millionaire executives right out of their cosy little nests.
This company seems primarily focused on the efficiency in the functioning of the fuel cell itself rather than one of the biggest problems of this application. In order to really compete on distance, you need liquid hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen is stored at -253° C and that presents some serious problems for a plane
You are correct! The real barrier to hydrogen-fueled airliners is NOT the efficiency or cooling-system weight of the fuel cell, but how to transport the required hydrogen. Even liquid hydrogen is very bulky (1/4 of the energy density of Jet Fuel)... to which bulk you have to add the very consequent insulation of tanks to hold the .253°C (-423°F) hydrogen in safety! Then, there is the cost! It costs, in 2024 dollars, around $3.40 per kg ONLY to liquify the hydrogen (source: www.hydrogen.energy.gov/docs/hydrogenprogramlibraries/pdfs/19001_hydrogen_liquefaction_costs.pdf?Status=Master) Add the $4-5 per kg it WILL cost, sometime in the future (now, it is still much more expensive than that) to produce "green" hydrogen. Add the very high storage and distribution costs of liquid hydrogen, and your kg of hydrogen going into an airplane will be at least $10... vs around $0.86/kg for Jet Fuel!!! (BTW, the price of pressurized, i.e. not liquified, hydrogen at fueling stations in Europe and California is presently $16-36/kg!!!) Sure, hydrogen contains 3 times more energy per kg than Jet Fuel... but how much more in practice, once you account for the weight of the respective containers (tanks) and associated systems? Maybe only double as much! Sure, the efficiency of a fuel-cell + associated electric power plant is significantly higher than that of a turboprop engine! But still not nearly enough to compensate for 10+ TIMES the cost per kg! And how do make a jet engine run electric? And finally, there is the HUGE of hydrogen safety to solve, especially in an aeronautical application!
@@w8stral Very good point! There just IS NOT enough platinum for a transition of the road fleet to hydrogen fuel-cells. But for aircraft possibly. It depends how much Pt these fuel cells require. As EVs replace ICE cars, the platinum presently going into catalytic converters will become available for other uses.
While not taking anything away from this work no actual data of thermodynamic efficiency was presented, additionally the current cost of both fuel cells and electrolisers are very high. Producing hydrogen is always going to be very expensive. More energy must go in to produce the hydrogen than ca be extracted (therodynamics). A lot different to drilling a hole in the ground and getting oil out.
@karlwithak. You are obviously challenged scientifically on the subject. Multiple gases absorb infra red radiation and re-radiate it at lower atmosphere levels causing warming. The more of those gases and CO2 and CH4 are the main anthropocentric ones the faster the planet heats up. Denying reality will not make it go away.
@@t1n4444 Not history, actually engineering, physics and chemistry, suggest you look up the energies of enthalpy, entropy and the laws of thermodynamics particularly the second law. That is why bio-fuels and hydrogen based fuels will always be much more expensive than fossil fuels. It takes the energy from fossil fuels to produce both the materials for the infrastructure needed to produce/manufacture and the energy input to manufacture the alternative fuels. There are 2 very compelling reasons to move away from fossil fuels; global warming and resource depletion. Both are much closer to catastrophic than is being generally published.
The ultimate fuel cell is Methane solid oxide fuel cells - they can hit 95% chemical to electrical energy conversion without breaking a sweat! Only issue is they're expensive. But I'd be willing to bet that will change soon.
@@terryevans1976 Well, we will need a net negative in greenhouse gas emissions at a point in the not so distant future, if hydrogen isn’t a viable alternative, than we will just have to ban flying. Or we don’t release water vapor into the atmosphere, instead storing and condensing it onboard.
@@RichelieuUnlimited Methane makes the least CO2 of any carbon-based fuel, but if you're worried about CO2 yes there are many renewable methane sources.
Hey @ZirothTech first time viewer but someone with decades of experience in aviation and covering clean / renewable energy. You did a fine job on a very complicated subject. Well done. Appreciated how you established that while not a widely commercialized technology, PEM fuel cells have been an operational technology in specific applications for a very long time.
Like you said, planes carry tons of fuel. Without the extra weight of the coolant, they can carry more fuel for more range. Besides, if the plane was traveling between places like California and Utah, the pilots and crew would only put in enough fuel for the trip, plus some for loitering, not a full tank.
Really think of SOFC when talking high temperature. How are they getting around the low volumetric energy density of hydrogen? Isn’t most of their test vehicle fuel tank?
Kontak Hydrogen Storage has patented technology that stores hydrogen on ammonia at 7 BAR. Our compact Reactor is 80% efficient and stores twice as much hydrogen as compressed and 43% more than liquid without cryogenic temperatures. As ammonia is converted, the aircraft becomes significantly lighter since the storage vessels are much lighter. Refueling times to 100% of capacity are far shorter than battery recharging.
ammonia has half of energy density of jet fuel while liquid hydrogen has 3x the energy density of jet fuel. Something in your explanation doesn't add up.
@@FultonStephani When comparing the energy density of jet fuel to hydrogen, there are some important differences to consider: Jet Fuel: Jet fuel, specifically Jet-A or Jet-A1, has an energy density of about 35-37 megajoules per liter (MJ/L) and approximately 43-47 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg). Hydrogen: Hydrogen has a lower energy density by volume but higher energy density by weight. The energy density of hydrogen is roughly: About 8.5-10 megajoules per liter (MJ/L) when stored as a compressed gas at 700 bar (approximately 10,000 psi). Around 120-142 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg) when considering hydrogen in its liquid state. So, while hydrogen has a higher energy density by weight, its energy density by volume is much lower compared to jet fuel. This difference is crucial for applications like aviation, where the volume of fuel storage can be as important as the weight.
Incredible, thank's so much for the excellent video, the content alone is incredibly informative and valuable but your narration, editing and videography skills are fantastic. It would be so cool to see this technology applied for marine applications as well, the heat is incredibly useful for things like heating living quarters, water makers, and generators because the power to weight ratios are less demanding in such an application space.
Stack improvements were very cool to see. Have you heard of any promising advancements in Hydrogen storage? A long time ago I saw a lot of work in sold state storage but haven't heard much since. Seems we are still just using high pressure tanks to store the gas.
It is not the whole truth about FCs. Fuel cell efficiency strongly depends on the power rate. At 20% of maximum power it could have more than 60% efficiency.
Well, although that company is based in the USA, I'd have to say that it's about as international a team as you could find anywhere. Looking forward to seeing how they get on.
Insane video! Exciting to see Zero Avia from the inside! The picture of the Boeing 787 at the beginning is misleading though as no one is expecting that size/range anytime soon. An A320/737 would have been more appropriate but a Dash-8 probably the most honest airplane to show at that point
Problem with Hydrogen is not the energy generation, its the creation and transport. Japan is investigating in red Hydrogen, but they are the only country that is investigating in its infrastructure.
Creation of hydrogen is a separate problem compared to energy density. While it’s not very sustainable to generate hydrogen it still has the added benefit of being very energy dense compared to batteries and basically 0 emissions. So while the Creation of hydrogen is still a problem, it is the key thing that could enable more sustainable aviation. Battery aviation is just not an option at the moment with current battery tech, especially long distance. Practical long distance aviation is the nut they are trying to crack. Once we figure out how to enable hydrogen use in aviation, more sustainable ways of creation will come along. There needs to be a market first.
@@King_Cole useful hydrogen, aka compressed hydrogen storage, is not energy dense it is around 600 wh/kg and 300 wh/l at 5000 psi. If you increase the psi, you increase wh/l but decrease wh/kg.
@@King_Colefunny how people think there will not be major advances in tech and incentives for change when the cost and regulations hit a certain threshold. Like gas pumps and supply chains just appeared out of nowhere and never posed any challenges or increases in safety, efficiency and cost reduction.
@@nameberry220 I think your estimates are way off. A real world example is the Hydrogen powered Toyota Mirai which operates at ~10,000 PSI and a hydrogen energy density of about 20000 wh/kg. That's way different than what you quoted. That is about 5-10 times more energy dense than lithium for perspective. However, I don't think Hydrogen is the answer to everything. It's just another option especially when it comes to long distance like aviation or shipping. The "green hydrogen" problem definitely still needs to be solved before this can become fully sustainable and readily available.
@@lucbloomThere are certain physical limits, you cannot cheat the laws of physics. But, I think for aircraft where cost is less of an issue, pressurized cooled hydrogen will probably be the answer.
thank you for sharing these awesome ideas and inventions, having an interest for renewable and clean energy, it is great to see so many new ideas popping up
16:20 I wish I had a movie production right now in which I could propose to Rudolf for him to play a role in it. He has an incredible screen presence, IMO. The potential I see in him is off the charts. If I had the skills to manage my way out of a paper bag, I'd offer to be his manager in the movie business!
21:35 new type of propeller? nope, it's not new. i first heard about this "new" type of propeller decades ago in germany, and i doubt it was new even back then.
Very well-done video. Clear and detailed. The chap said the system power density was 2Kg/kW. A Lycoming IO360 engine is described as 250g/kW (although wikipedia data suggests more like 850g/kW. I'm guessing that system power is the whole fuel cell with ancilliaries, but doesn't include fuel tanks, which is obviously much heavier for hydrogen than avgas. Some more detail from people who know about aero engines on how this power density compares with existing engines (piston, turboprop, turbofan). Obviously what actually matters is the whole system motor+fuel cell+tanks+ancilliaries. Also what do we know about volumetric power density? I must admit to having no idea what the factor of power density increase is from a piston engine to a turboprop engine to a turbofan engine. It does look like these things can compete with the piston engines, which is an excellent start, but I'm guessing we have a way to to go for the jets?
Global hydrogen car sales fall 30.2% in 2023. According to Korean research company SNE Research, 14,451 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs) were sold worldwide in 2023. This is 30.2% less than in 2022.
You don't need more power density, you need more volume density. You can already use batteries or other assistance for takeoff, then recharge the batteries slowly with a normal temperature fuel cell. You need the batteries anyway to heat the fuel cell.
dumbass, the fuel density of jet fuel is not the output fuel density of a jet engine. If we're talking fuel density it's 33.3kWh/kg for hydrogen. Jet engines operate anywhere between 33% and 66% efficiency from fuel to output speed at the nozzle. You do the calculations.
It sounding promising, but feeling that I’m missing key info here. Main interest: - cost per flight - initial cost - safety after wear & tear - cost & frequency of maintenance - complexity of repairs (emerging markets, global coverage) These offset to traditional methods. And prognosis by a non-biased source. That would be investor’s journalism.
theoretically air compression for cooling could be aided by intakes on the surface of the aircraft. Several intake vectors could be combined to concentrate efficiency.
What wasn't mentioned specifically was, what is the working fluid (medium) through the turbine side of the turbocharger? It must be steam from the recombination of the hydrogen and oxygen which is an exothermic reaction? So the turbocharger would not look similar to an internal combustion engine's.The turbine must have multiple stages to efficiently extract as much power as thermodynamically possible.Thermodynamics tells us that the higher temperature and pressure at the inlet of the turbo-expander the higher the efficiency. The steam is waste product so using it's energy instead of requiring parasitic cooling is the crux of Zeroavia's technology. So it is determined that the fuel cell must operate at high temperature and high pressure.They are engineering catalyst membranes to structurally resist high pressure and temperature.
Manufacturing and storing hydrogen is not easy, much less cheap, and can only be obtained on an industrial scale in a few places on Earth. It's looking like another promise to save humanity without much practical basis.
I would be interested in seeing a follow-up video on how this technology can be applied to other areas, such as power plants providing electricity to cities and automobile engines.
This is the kind of video that makes me very happy. First of all because of the hopeful technology that can really change our carbon footprint. But also because the video is very clear and made very well. I don't see any room for improvement, and if you would have read my other comments on RUclips video's (which I don't think you could), you would know that this is a rare thing. It's just so sad that I can give only one thumbs up.
Brilliant! Thank you Ziroth for sharing this magnificent, informative video. Hydrogen & various forms of Hydrogen for direct or for electric propulsion is the way to go! Hydrogen, Ammonia is the way to go in aviation & in bulk cargo transportation over oceans & land! Greetings from Madang, Papua New Guinea!
I think the catalyst development mainly focusses on oxygen reduction catalyst development, not so much on catalysts for the hydrogen oxidation, because that reaction has typically less activation overvoltages and is less "catalytically complex"....
Wow that sounds great. In a refinery wher we also produced Resins plastics so haf facilities for burnibg off rejected materials, in an enormous rageing pit. When a truck load of Helium arrived, five of my security gards were on station with two safety signs each. Great to produce it cheaply but distributing it and putting it into automobiles, trucks and planes, many of which burn, will require an exponential increase in undertakers.
18:59 or so: This is honestly where this tech is more important. Airplanes are unlikely to be improved by this, synthetic fuels are probably a better answer there. But heavy machinery and large land-based vehicles are harmed less by their fueling system needing to be larger - which is the primary problem with using hydrogen.
Great to see improvements in fuel cell technology. I am looking forward to seeing someone develop a hydrogen generator that can produce sufficient hydrogen for the fuel cells consumption without having to store large amounts of a dangerous substance. i.e. produce it as required?? that would be a real breakthrough.
So many Russian engineers and scientists on Zeroavia's team. It's inspiring to see them contributing to global progress and innovation. And sad - because many of them were forced to leave Russia to escape military service or jail - if they protested. Many clever, bright-minded and good people have been immigrating from Russia all the way since the 19th century. We keep creating horrible conditions for development and innovation.
There has been a recent discovery of several natural hydrogen (deposits)..if I’m not mistaken, anyone know more about the quality and cost of collecting natural hydrogen?
useful hydrogen, aka compressed hydrogen storage, is not energy dense it is around 600 wh/kg and 300 wh/l at 5000 psi. If you increase the psi, you increase wh/l but decrease wh/kg.
Can you please explain/translate your above comment as though to an 8 year old that was shaken as a baby? I've reread it 5 or 6 times now and am quite intrigued.
There are very few hydrogen fueling stations. Any hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is NOT going to succeed in America, that is for certain. Battery EVs can be charged anywhere, even in your home garage. That kind of advantage cannot be beaten.
Also the faster the aircraft moves the more efficient the cooling, and the more power you can generate without overheating, up to the point that aerodynamic heating occurs
Interesting video. It would be nice to see a diagram or animation about how the turbo is integrated into this design and how the propulsion is achieved. I'm struggling to understand how the energy is transported and managed in this engine - even though I understand turbos and fuel cells independently.
Interesting here are some thoughts.... The fuel cell with hot water leaving cell could be built into heat engine piston which could allow for pulsed high temperature and cooling cycles. This allows higher peak temperatures with lower average temperatures, so get electricity from fuel cell, and heat engine also provides comprssion and maybe some extra electricity.
Hydrogen is hopelessly inefficient. You have to make it (85%), liquefy it (70%), distribute it, store it, dispense it and convert it back into electricity (50%).
Well, ok but with fossil fuels you have to extract it, refine it, distribute it, dispense it. It's more energy dense when you do all that, but even so.
@@fredbloggs5902 Oil is renewable they have lied for years about this, it is not created from the decomposition of organic matter as often told. They have never managed to create crude oil in a lab for this reason, also many planets or moons have hydrocarbons on them but no organic matter which shows 100% this is false. Oil is Abiotic process created deep in the earth and is created constantly, the idea that we will run out of oil is just nonsense to keep everyone in fear. During ww2 the germans created synthetic oil for their war machine as they understood how its actually produced, later these scientists came over to work for Rockefeller who then kept this quiet as there was more profit if they kept the lie going that it was going to run out soon. Also many oil oilmen have said that old dry wells will fill back up over time as the oil in coming up from deep in the earth and we are only tapping little pools of it not deep down where it is created.
@@fredbloggs5902 I don't follow. Why is it meaningless? I don't have any figures, but surely there is a pretty direct comparison to be made between the efficiency of an internal combustion engine and a hydrogen engine? And also the costs of the things that you can compare, such as distribution.
@@jamesdeath3477 Because the comparison should be between using electricity directly vs. via hydrogen. Hydrogen is just a way of storing energy, it is NOT the energy source. Fossil fuels are a finite resource that is not renewable.
How the hell can the fuel cell be developed in the 1960s and now sixty years later the we have not really progressed with this technology ??? Finally others are picking up the torch and going forward. Good luck to you guys !!!!
Current "conventional" fuel cell systems are in so many ways a few times, to orders of magnitude worse than turbine engines for powering flight. Sure, increasing the temperature gives you a number of interesting potential benefits, decreasing the number of times worse and orders of magnitude worse some aspects are compared to turbine engines. Developing such systems is closer to basic research than commercialization of known technologies. The basic fact that Toyota et. al. haven't chosen that route, with their billions of dollars spent on R&D suggests it's not realistic that some startup will figure out how to design a system that's much better than low temperature systems. And, just a few times better still won't make it fuel cells viable for powering airplanes. If they can achieve 2 kW/kg on a system level, fuel cell system, not including tanks, or motors, but everything needed to turn hydrogen into power, and make it reliable, with reasonable energy efficiency, that would be very impressive, but still really really bad for aviation. One of many issues with fuel cells is that each molecule of oxygen and hydrogen needs to find it's "partner" to react with, from either side of a membrane, on a molecular level. That is a huge fundamental issue, and among other things, that means, for any given system, the higher the power output the lower the efficiency will be, which makes aviation the worst possible application for fuel cells. A comparison, for jet engines, it depends in the engine and size of the bird if the motor ingesting a bird is a significant issue or not. For fuel cells, even grains of pollen invisible to the naked eye that gets into the fuel cell is an issue that will reduce performance and efficiency. For a jet engine, pollen that gets sucked in are bonus fuel. While hydrogen isn't a very practical fuel for anything that needs to have reasonable cost, and turbine engines are not easy to develop, developing a hydrogen turbine engine electric hybrid system could be considered very reasonable, compared to fuel cell based system, for aviation.
Maybe a Fuel Cell combo for Ammonia, it's dubious too, but Chemists have the potential energy density of so-called Nuclear Reactions to reiterate underlying phenomena to find different strategies of using Catalysts in solid states.
Very cool tech, but I feel like the information wasn't delivered very well. It's fairly often that the people working on these projects hands on, have a hard time explaining it in the moment or "on the spot". It's your job to take said information, break it down, and explain it, in a digestible manner. So far what I got from this is hydrogen fuel cell built similar to the construction of a stereotypical anode cathode battery cell, that is able to withstand a high temperature environment. Somewhere along the line The high temperature environment is able to utilize turbochargers and that somehow increases efficiency. Being that it's a turbocharger it would have to be on the exhaust end... But where is their exhaust in the system? Is that just the air flowing through the ducks on the motor of the propeller driven craft? Can this be scaled up to use jet turbines? Still quite a few unknowns. I feel given the length of this video these answers should be resolved.
This looks promising. Now, we just need breakthroughs in all the other areas of hydrogen. 30% energy loss of turning green energy to hydrogen. 30% energy loss to compress or cryogenicly cool hydrogen for storage. Hydrogen is one of the hardest fuels to store and transport.
What is even cooler, is that people like "Jeremiah" as on the breakthrough of the Nikola Tesla's two stage turbine. (Which is a turbine and a pump, in one.) It is so good, that it literally can convert even wet steam, into ice. That means that solar panels are about to become as efficient as a generator. (90-95%). Even fuels, like petrol, diesel and hydrogen, will become 90-95% efficient, instead of the 35%-65%, like they are now. While using less expensive equipment.
An additional source of application is the space industry and of course the Military for a power source for electro rocket fuel for attitude trusters and short term controlled propulsion.
As h2 has to be mainly highly pressurised and refrigerated to keep it and requires then large carbon containers to store. Can they not use Ammonia at full strength to give them H3. Also once in a high altitude you could use atmospheric water vapour to give endless hydrogen from water vapour as well as the oxygen in atmosphere, that would require supper amounts air harvesting cells, Buts its weights is negligible due to not requiring fuel once initial lift and height achieved. Love there approach
In charge of some forty security people at four adjacent facilities, owned by Mobile oil. I provided four people to secure a considerable area when hydrogen was being delivered. All staff and visitors were informed. We could evacuate ten thousand people and had to prepare several fire stations with a dozen tenders. Delivery of a truckload of atomic bombs might have been more safe. Prior, I was required to report on preparations and submit a report afterwards. Frequently a senior manager observed the proceedings.
Hydrogen is a notorious element to store. Whoever cracks a low loss or even a no loss method of hydrogen storage will be the winner in the coming decades.
You should capture the moisture and use the heat to break it down again breaking down moisture into hydrogen and oxygen is easier than most people know.
Stupid idea , but cant you use te heat in the exaust and inject it with the 0² produced into the hot air to create steam before the turbo that will increase the pressure in the turbo making it spin faster ?
As I understand, simply heating gaseous nitrogen in presence of oxygen will not form NOx gasses! This can be done with molecules containing Nitrogen (like Aluminium Nitrate), but not gas. ICE engines produce NOx due to the explosive combustion process in the cylinders.
"ode" means "path" Diode = two paths Triode = three paths Cathode = positive path Anode = negative path Anode' was coined by William Whewell at Michael Faraday's request, derived from the Greek words ἄνο (ano), 'upwards' and ὁδός (hodós), 'a way' Cathode comes from the Greek words κάτω (kato), 'downwards' and ὁδός (hodós), 'a way'.
One of the challenges will be nitrogen oxide formation at high temperatures... the main reason why catalytic converters were added to cars 50+ years ago.
I'd argue this technology is insane! I mean if some guy came up to me and started babbling techno speak at me and saying it would change the world I'd assume he was insane. 😅
@@lpjunction im only 40 and my whole life ive known about this so called "world changing invention" propaganda BS... the joy of reading too much? iunno. all i see is a civilisation that rapidly built a house of cards up upon something intangible... went mad with the urge to create but lost sight of what they were creating FOR... rather than some actual goal, a purpose, we aimed for a delusional sense of "value" placed upon things... no common purpose, other than to have "high tech" and "progress", pretending that the house of cards is a solid structure and permanent and this is the way it always has been, always will be... neglecting that only a mere century ago there were basically no cars at all... no planes... people walked, rode or slowly steamed... but before steam? walk. ride. everything we buy is just a distraction from our own existence. do we need that widescreen TV, that subscription service, that uber ride? how did the human race get to this point of absolute reliance on other people, and everyone is in this insane race for "the top" of some intangible scrap heap that none of us can truly name? what are we actually working towards, what is the POINT of all this? how can you have a "billionaire" co-exist with a homeless urchin with nothing but scars and bruises and resentment? but nothing has really changed in the last century, either. sure, we got flashy phones and beeping things, and shiny cars but really, what has CHANGED? stuck in a rut, thats where we are. an endless loop of futility... "faster communication, better networking"..."information technology!" DATA! ENERGY!!! wtf is it all FOR? people once made statues, or invented flutes and violins or pianos... invented TV... isolated LSD... made the helicopter... the weaving loom... the turret lathe. the golf tee! why? a better life. boredom, they had nothing to distract them! freedom, they had no mortgage or financial insecurity (hopefully? ha ha...sucks to be a pauper!) or government agency dictating how they do things... now we just have stagnant re-hashing of the same old ideas that didnt work then, wont work now... but we all _heard_ of such things, thanks to "education", we all have these half arsed theories on how things work, explanations... and just like legends of say, jason and his argonauts, or maybe the aboriginal dreamtime, etc etc... how about the schools that refuse to teach "evolution"? or cultural/religious norms that have "possessed persons marry a dog so as to free them of the demonic possession"... yes, that stuff still happens in this modern world. myths abound... one persons explanation may be right. another thousand peoples explanations will be wrong... did your teacher understand the ins and outs of electricity when they taught you "how batteries and lightbulbs work"? no. they had the vaguest comprehension, more than likely incorrect, themselves. and they just "educated" generations of children over their career... just repeated the same misunderstandings, and all those children, like chinese whispers, built their OWN misunderstandings... but they all "know how electricity works", right? they were tested, graded! anyway. so, when "new tech" comes out, its really easy to convince a population that only have the vaguest understanding, often completely wrong and misguided understanding, of how something works, that that object will be "the next best thing since sliced bread..." the modern world is a facade, a shiny bauble intended to distract ones attention from the underlying rot and shoddy fabrication of the underlying support structure. polished turds are still turds. and diamonds are relatively useless anyway! (ignores industrial applications...)
That still doesn’t address the volatility of hydrogen, particularly in a crash situation! I still see no future of hydrogen in aviation unless the volatility can be managed and fully controlled in a crash situation! To develop a powerful turbine is the least of all challenges!
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
This breakthrough is what happens when engineers look at a problem at a system level! Amazing work. Also, don't forget to check out the interactive courses from Brilliant! Use my link at brilliant.org/ziroth/ for 30 days FREE and 20% off a subscription!
Pro tip: don't put "insane" in your header. In 2024, it means "mediocre clickbait".
this is what happens when i allow my ideas into my surface thoughts where they can be farmed
Lighten up fr
Francis. 😅
The real question is, when will the AI videos start popping up crediting Leon Musk with this development. 😂
Another energy storage device for even the large electric planes I'm conceptualizing for the market, ones that'll be in sized with like the Boeing 737 or larger, like up to even 747 size.
Don't worry, I've figured out a power delivery system that'll be in place of the motors needed to even get the plane airborne.
Again "slapping a turbo on it" was the solution.
at least they're using turbos in a creative way, rather than just using it to replace displacement.
When in doubt.. Turbo
Just slap a turbo sticker on something and it’s better.
As an Engineering Phsicist by education, I truly appreciate everything the turbochargers can offer. The best thing they offer in cars or airplanes are red-orange blowtorches under the cowlings. Hence, my Son's dead Subaru WRX in my driveway. That I could barbecue on the hood for ~2 hours after engine shutdown.
I've flown in the back of several turbocharged twin-engined Cessnas. 340, 414 and 421. During the day everything looks "cool"/fine. At night, the terrifying orange-red glow from behind the engine in front of a 1/16" stainless steel firewall. Does not inspire confidence in engineering, design or longevity. No haters please. Properly maintained twin Cessnas are excellent if you fly them carefully, take care of the ~310-375 HP engines that are 285HP in a N/A setup. And fly them as far below gross weight as possible. The problem is they are cheap to buy and very expensive to maintain. And people overload them all of the time. Because? If there's 6 or 7 seats. Then that's what you can put in their spacious cabins. Right? Plus everybody's baggage in the nose for the vacation trip to a high altitude airport.
@@wanderingbufoon this comment makes no sense. The usage of a turbocharger to increase power was insanely creative. And it doesn't replace displacement, any displacement engine could use a turbocharger. It increases efficiency. Why waste energy out your exhaust when you can recover it, use it to compress your intake charge so you can burn more fuel.
Pro tip: don't put "insane" in your header. In 2024, it means "mediocre clickbait".
please @ZirothTech , listen to him, this is not the best title
Unfortunately it's what the youtube algorithm likes though.
Agree. 'Insane' is an instant 'skate over'. If something is insane then it has no place in applied technology.
'insane' 'another level'
Right like come on now, if it was, "insane" it would be broadcast like pearl harbor, moon landing or the end of world wars... The only thing insane is the need for this creator to pay his bills.. just get a normal job and be productive, youtube is a productive diverter... Like for real
Haven't high temp fuel cells always been more efficient? That was the big issue in fuel cell development early on. You could get plenty of reliability and power from a high temperature fuel cell, but your car had to heat up to work properly.
Also, power from fuel cells has never been the issue. It's always been that hydrogen is slippery. It can leak out of most fittings and can even squeeze in between molecules of solid objects.
@karlwithak. 37 gigatons. 74 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide was put into the atmosphere last year. An all time high btw. In order to plant enough trees just to stabilize the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, every person on the planet would need to plant 138 trees. So effectively, humanity is tossing gigatons of trees into the atmosphere. I hardly think it's inconsequential.
What bothers me are sensational environmental pieces that make people passive. They think "Oh it's ok, we've almost got this fixed." So there's nothing to worry about.
I guess aviation as a target is a lot more sensible then. Commercial aviation has a lot more maintenance and regulation for it's fuel and fuel tanks already so the premium for fuel tanks with better seals won't be so impactful. Once the planes turn on, they're on for at least an hour up to 12 hours so no short on-off cycling like a car. Airports being the only places where to tank up will make the supporting infrastructure easier: there might be hundreds more gas pumps than airports. Finally, unloading the unspent hydrogen from landed planes if they will also be feasible with the airport infrastructure.
Things still break faster even if you inspect them regularly, adding cost. Also, liquid hydrogen is a pain in the ass.
I was wondering too, if the well know problem of hydrogen storage has been resolved.
Correct and it damages many types of materials, even metals
This is a GREAT introductory explanation of fuel cells. Thanks.
Thanks David! I learnt a lot whilst making this
No mention of hydrogen storage? How much bleed off is there? Is the tank in an aircraft somewhere in the fuselage? The tech sounds good but there is always the problem of keeping the fuel at super low temperatures.
I think pulse-tube cryocooling is used because hydrogen must need lab-level cooling to become a liquid, so it's denser!
Less of a problem in a plane than with a car. Planes do scheduled flights, so cryogenic storage, will be filled before flights.
Exactly, it then becomes a choice between H2 powered turbo-jet/prop vs fuel-cell electric propulsion systems.
Turbo wins hands down.
I wanted to focus on the fuel cell here as hydrogen storage has been covered many times before - but there may be follow up videos on the other developments in ZeroAvias power train to come!
@@ZirothTech It is a highly interesting concept they are pursuing. Efficiency of fuel cells go up with higher temperature. the band gap in the catalyst is easier to overcome. Using a turbo as cogeneration, is proper engineering = using the available waste energy for something useful. Clearly this is not a "one gimmick" startup.
It does not matter how well any hydrogen system operates. The massive problem hydrogen has is its production storage and distribution. Considering is propensity to permiate just about any material these are massive.
Yes, I am lucky to be able to talk about this with an engineer whose job is hydrogen storage.
@karlwithak.even if they were, fossil fuels have a definite end, it will come, no matter what. It's just not sustainable, dirty in acquisition and very wasteful and inefficient with energy in general. Shit makes no sense => maybe we should look for alternatives...
True true and true, it's money or/and research to get there. Now let me ask you, how can you replace natural gas or just petroleum/gas. You can't replace the cars for electric, not feasible for any grid in the world. Same for natural gas.
Even though storage is a problem ,it's a space problem, not an energy to compress the problem as hydrogen has a massively lower molar density, so it's very easily compressable.
@@bernardomacara6284 Wrong. EVs can be supplied by the grid in most countries with only small improvements. It is just like the increase in capacity required bt the widespread adoption of air conditioning in the US in the 1960s.
@@bernardomacara6284 By what stretch of the petroleum industiy's fears do you (they) reason that the world cannot replace their admittiedly extensive and expensive distribution network with the other network that is largely already in place? Further developement of home solar and localised wind generation is already having a large effect and scaring the millionaire executives right out of their cosy little nests.
This company seems primarily focused on the efficiency in the functioning of the fuel cell itself rather than one of the biggest problems of this application. In order to really compete on distance, you need liquid hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen is stored at -253° C and that presents some serious problems for a plane
I would like a video where all the challenges are laid bare.
A small company for small problem
You are correct! The real barrier to hydrogen-fueled airliners is NOT the efficiency or cooling-system weight of the fuel cell, but how to transport the required hydrogen. Even liquid hydrogen is very bulky (1/4 of the energy density of Jet Fuel)... to which bulk you have to add the very consequent insulation of tanks to hold the .253°C (-423°F) hydrogen in safety!
Then, there is the cost! It costs, in 2024 dollars, around $3.40 per kg ONLY to liquify the hydrogen (source: www.hydrogen.energy.gov/docs/hydrogenprogramlibraries/pdfs/19001_hydrogen_liquefaction_costs.pdf?Status=Master)
Add the $4-5 per kg it WILL cost, sometime in the future (now, it is still much more expensive than that) to produce "green" hydrogen. Add the very high storage and distribution costs of liquid hydrogen, and your kg of hydrogen going into an airplane will be at least $10... vs around $0.86/kg for Jet Fuel!!! (BTW, the price of pressurized, i.e. not liquified, hydrogen at fueling stations in Europe and California is presently $16-36/kg!!!)
Sure, hydrogen contains 3 times more energy per kg than Jet Fuel... but how much more in practice, once you account for the weight of the respective containers (tanks) and associated systems? Maybe only double as much!
Sure, the efficiency of a fuel-cell + associated electric power plant is significantly higher than that of a turboprop engine! But still not nearly enough to compensate for 10+ TIMES the cost per kg! And how do make a jet engine run electric?
And finally, there is the HUGE of hydrogen safety to solve, especially in an aeronautical application!
That & Now if only we had a GIANT deposit of Platinum.... Oh right, we don't so--> useless.
@@w8stral Very good point!
There just IS NOT enough platinum for a transition of the road fleet to hydrogen fuel-cells. But for aircraft possibly. It depends how much Pt these fuel cells require. As EVs replace ICE cars, the platinum presently going into catalytic converters will become available for other uses.
"If there were no challenges, it would be done already."
20:08
I just loved the phrase
Yes, if my grandpa had five balls he would be a pinball machine
While not taking anything away from this work no actual data of thermodynamic efficiency was presented, additionally the current cost of both fuel cells and electrolisers are very high. Producing hydrogen is always going to be very expensive. More energy must go in to produce the hydrogen than ca be extracted (therodynamics). A lot different to drilling a hole in the ground and getting oil out.
Clearly looking for PR and grant money.... Just that "slight" problem that this requires TONS of Platinum to make it work which --> we do not have.
@karlwithak. You are obviously challenged scientifically on the subject. Multiple gases absorb infra red radiation and re-radiate it at lower atmosphere levels causing warming. The more of those gases and CO2 and CH4 are the main anthropocentric ones the faster the planet heats up. Denying reality will not make it go away.
aggree in terms of lack of data, butu cant compare hydrogen to oil. oil generates energy, hydrogen just transports it.
No. You have merely posted a history lesson.
Suggest you get out your Google and do some research.
Preferably prior to posting.
@@t1n4444 Not history, actually engineering, physics and chemistry, suggest you look up the energies of enthalpy, entropy and the laws of thermodynamics particularly the second law. That is why bio-fuels and hydrogen based fuels will always be much more expensive than fossil fuels. It takes the energy from fossil fuels to produce both the materials for the infrastructure needed to produce/manufacture and the energy input to manufacture the alternative fuels. There are 2 very compelling reasons to move away from fossil fuels; global warming and resource depletion. Both are much closer to catastrophic than is being generally published.
The ultimate fuel cell is Methane solid oxide fuel cells - they can hit 95% chemical to electrical energy conversion without breaking a sweat! Only issue is they're expensive. But I'd be willing to bet that will change soon.
Doesn‘t this create CO2 emissions? Is there or will there be ‚green‘ methane?
@@RichelieuUnlimited the water vapor from the H2 fuel cell is as much or more of a contributor to warming as methane and way more than CO2
@@terryevans1976 Well, we will need a net negative in greenhouse gas emissions at a point in the not so distant future, if hydrogen isn’t a viable alternative, than we will just have to ban flying. Or we don’t release water vapor into the atmosphere, instead storing and condensing it onboard.
Don't release water vapor?! So no breathing either 😂 @@RichelieuUnlimited
@@RichelieuUnlimited Methane makes the least CO2 of any carbon-based fuel, but if you're worried about CO2 yes there are many renewable methane sources.
Hey @ZirothTech first time viewer but someone with decades of experience in aviation and covering clean / renewable energy. You did a fine job on a very complicated subject. Well done. Appreciated how you established that while not a widely commercialized technology, PEM fuel cells have been an operational technology in specific applications for a very long time.
FYI: Alaska Airlines is NOT a "regional" airline. It flies internationally. Not a complaint, just a correction.
Thanks for the clarification!
They're talking about reducing the weight of cooling water, but planes already carry tons of fuel. What's the comparison in weight?
better fuel economy and balance
Like you said, planes carry tons of fuel. Without the extra weight of the coolant, they can carry more fuel for more range. Besides, if the plane was traveling between places like California and Utah, the pilots and crew would only put in enough fuel for the trip, plus some for loitering, not a full tank.
@@WolfeSaber Good pernt.
If you listened, it’s air cooled
@@WolfeSaberI think you will find they do not carry lots of fuel....modern turbo-fan engines dont use fuel.........
storage density, embrittlement, molecular leakage, hydrogen production efficiency, impurity membrane poisoning and and and... SMH
Well stated❤
Really think of SOFC when talking high temperature. How are they getting around the low volumetric energy density of hydrogen? Isn’t most of their test vehicle fuel tank?
Kontak Hydrogen Storage has patented technology that stores hydrogen on ammonia at 7 BAR. Our compact Reactor is 80% efficient and stores twice as much hydrogen as compressed and 43% more than liquid without cryogenic temperatures. As ammonia is converted, the aircraft becomes significantly lighter since the storage vessels are much lighter. Refueling times to 100% of capacity are far shorter than battery recharging.
Hello user, combining hydrogen in order to make it easier to transport,use and store is a great idea. Ammonia is a poison though
ammonia has half of energy density of jet fuel while liquid hydrogen has 3x the energy density of jet fuel. Something in your explanation doesn't add up.
@@FultonStephani When comparing the energy density of jet fuel to hydrogen, there are some important differences to consider:
Jet Fuel: Jet fuel, specifically Jet-A or Jet-A1, has an energy density of about 35-37 megajoules per liter (MJ/L) and approximately 43-47 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg).
Hydrogen: Hydrogen has a lower energy density by volume but higher energy density by weight. The energy density of hydrogen is roughly:
About 8.5-10 megajoules per liter (MJ/L) when stored as a compressed gas at 700 bar (approximately 10,000 psi).
Around 120-142 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg) when considering hydrogen in its liquid state.
So, while hydrogen has a higher energy density by weight, its energy density by volume is much lower compared to jet fuel. This difference is crucial for applications like aviation, where the volume of fuel storage can be as important as the weight.
That was a beautiful , seamless transition into the sponsor's plug and a simple return back to the content. Well done!
Incredible, thank's so much for the excellent video, the content alone is incredibly informative and valuable but your narration, editing and videography skills are fantastic. It would be so cool to see this technology applied for marine applications as well, the heat is incredibly useful for things like heating living quarters, water makers, and generators because the power to weight ratios are less demanding in such an application space.
Stack improvements were very cool to see. Have you heard of any promising advancements in Hydrogen storage? A long time ago I saw a lot of work in sold state storage but haven't heard much since. Seems we are still just using high pressure tanks to store the gas.
Solid state hydrogen storage was a scam.
Great video but the key metric that they ‘forgot’ to tell us is the efficiency. The Mirai fuel cell is less than 50%.
It is not the whole truth about FCs. Fuel cell efficiency strongly depends on the power rate. At 20% of maximum power it could have more than 60% efficiency.
@@Torx-uh3uo20% max power is not much use for an aircraft.
Fascinating!... and there is even more information in the comments section!... that gives hope for the future... if we survive the ''energy wars''...
Well, although that company is based in the USA, I'd have to say that it's about as international a team as you could find anywhere. Looking forward to seeing how they get on.
Insane video! Exciting to see Zero Avia from the inside!
The picture of the Boeing 787 at the beginning is misleading though as no one is expecting that size/range anytime soon. An A320/737 would have been more appropriate but a Dash-8 probably the most honest airplane to show at that point
Problem with Hydrogen is not the energy generation, its the creation and transport. Japan is investigating in red Hydrogen, but they are the only country that is investigating in its infrastructure.
Creation of hydrogen is a separate problem compared to energy density. While it’s not very sustainable to generate hydrogen it still has the added benefit of being very energy dense compared to batteries and basically 0 emissions. So while the Creation of hydrogen is still a problem, it is the key thing that could enable more sustainable aviation. Battery aviation is just not an option at the moment with current battery tech, especially long distance. Practical long distance aviation is the nut they are trying to crack.
Once we figure out how to enable hydrogen use in aviation, more sustainable ways of creation will come along. There needs to be a market first.
@@King_Cole useful hydrogen, aka compressed hydrogen storage, is not energy dense it is around 600 wh/kg and 300 wh/l at 5000 psi. If you increase the psi, you increase wh/l but decrease wh/kg.
@@King_Colefunny how people think there will not be major advances in tech and incentives for change when the cost and regulations hit a certain threshold.
Like gas pumps and supply chains just appeared out of nowhere and never posed any challenges or increases in safety, efficiency and cost reduction.
@@nameberry220 I think your estimates are way off. A real world example is the Hydrogen powered Toyota Mirai which operates at ~10,000 PSI and a hydrogen energy density of about 20000 wh/kg. That's way different than what you quoted. That is about 5-10 times more energy dense than lithium for perspective.
However, I don't think Hydrogen is the answer to everything. It's just another option especially when it comes to long distance like aviation or shipping.
The "green hydrogen" problem definitely still needs to be solved before this can become fully sustainable and readily available.
@@lucbloomThere are certain physical limits, you cannot cheat the laws of physics.
But, I think for aircraft where cost is less of an issue, pressurized cooled hydrogen will probably be the answer.
thank you for sharing these awesome ideas and inventions, having an interest for renewable and clean energy, it is great to see so many new ideas popping up
16:20 I wish I had a movie production right now in which I could propose to Rudolf for him to play a role in it. He has an incredible screen presence, IMO. The potential I see in him is off the charts. If I had the skills to manage my way out of a paper bag, I'd offer to be his manager in the movie business!
Lots of words on many topics except one - exactly how much better/worse is it than what we have currently (in %). Too much hype!
21:35 new type of propeller? nope, it's not new. i first heard about this "new" type of propeller decades ago in germany, and i doubt it was new even back then.
Good spot - I actually talk about the history of it in the video! What I meant to say was a new design of an existing propeller!
Where does all the Platinum come from at scale?
From all of the catalytic converters in ICEs that are no longer required.
Very well-done video. Clear and detailed. The chap said the system power density was 2Kg/kW. A Lycoming IO360 engine is described as 250g/kW (although wikipedia data suggests more like 850g/kW. I'm guessing that system power is the whole fuel cell with ancilliaries, but doesn't include fuel tanks, which is obviously much heavier for hydrogen than avgas. Some more detail from people who know about aero engines on how this power density compares with existing engines (piston, turboprop, turbofan). Obviously what actually matters is the whole system motor+fuel cell+tanks+ancilliaries. Also what do we know about volumetric power density? I must admit to having no idea what the factor of power density increase is from a piston engine to a turboprop engine to a turbofan engine. It does look like these things can compete with the piston engines, which is an excellent start, but I'm guessing we have a way to to go for the jets?
Global hydrogen car sales fall 30.2% in 2023. According to Korean research company SNE Research, 14,451 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs) were sold worldwide in 2023. This is 30.2% less than in 2022.
You don't need more power density, you need more volume density. You can already use batteries or other assistance for takeoff, then recharge the batteries slowly with a normal temperature fuel cell. You need the batteries anyway to heat the fuel cell.
This is a wonderful development
They archived 2kw/kg density ? well guess the energy density of jet fuel with modern jet engines its between 10kw-12kw/kg.
dumbass, the fuel density of jet fuel is not the output fuel density of a jet engine. If we're talking fuel density it's 33.3kWh/kg for hydrogen. Jet engines operate anywhere between 33% and 66% efficiency from fuel to output speed at the nozzle. You do the calculations.
It sounding promising, but feeling that I’m missing key info here.
Main interest:
- cost per flight
- initial cost
- safety after wear & tear
- cost & frequency of maintenance
- complexity of repairs (emerging markets, global coverage)
These offset to traditional methods. And prognosis by a non-biased source.
That would be investor’s journalism.
Love that "adding a turbo kit" essentially solves a problem here :D
Great review, thanks. Looks like the way to go..
theoretically air compression for cooling could be aided by intakes on the surface of the aircraft. Several intake vectors could be combined to concentrate efficiency.
Another awesome video - super cool to have the interviews :)
What wasn't mentioned specifically was, what is the working fluid (medium) through the turbine side of the turbocharger? It must be steam from the recombination of the hydrogen and oxygen which is an exothermic reaction? So the turbocharger would not look similar to an internal combustion engine's.The turbine must have multiple stages to efficiently extract as much power as thermodynamically possible.Thermodynamics tells us that the higher temperature and pressure at the inlet of the turbo-expander the higher the efficiency. The steam is waste product so using it's energy instead of requiring parasitic cooling is the crux of Zeroavia's technology. So it is determined that the fuel cell must operate at high temperature and high pressure.They are engineering catalyst membranes to structurally resist high pressure and temperature.
Pleasure is our,!thanks
For saving the world were going to need it when it gets Dark for a Long time.wait is this being done by the shop hahaha
Manufacturing and storing hydrogen is not easy, much less cheap, and can only be obtained on an industrial scale in a few places on Earth. It's looking like another promise to save humanity without much practical basis.
Nothing good comes easy !
@@jacobuszwanenburg1629 if I were wealthy I'd consider it being a good thing , then why does wealth come so easy to only certain people.
I would be interested in seeing a follow-up video on how this technology can be applied to other areas, such as power plants providing electricity to cities and automobile engines.
This is the kind of video that makes me very happy. First of all because of the hopeful technology that can really change our carbon footprint. But also because the video is very clear and made very well. I don't see any room for improvement, and if you would have read my other comments on RUclips video's (which I don't think you could), you would know that this is a rare thing. It's just so sad that I can give only one thumbs up.
These are better than the fuel cells on the Space Shuttle. Wild
The space shuttle is over 40 years old.
Brilliant! Thank you Ziroth for sharing this magnificent, informative video. Hydrogen & various forms of Hydrogen for direct or for electric propulsion is the way to go! Hydrogen, Ammonia is the way to go in aviation & in bulk cargo transportation over oceans & land! Greetings from Madang, Papua New Guinea!
I think the catalyst development mainly focusses on oxygen reduction catalyst development, not so much on catalysts for the hydrogen oxidation, because that reaction has typically less activation overvoltages and is less "catalytically complex"....
Wow that sounds great. In a refinery wher we also produced Resins plastics so haf facilities for burnibg off rejected materials, in an enormous rageing pit. When a truck load of Helium arrived, five of my security gards were on station with two safety signs each. Great to produce it cheaply but distributing it and putting it into automobiles, trucks and planes, many of which burn, will require an exponential increase in undertakers.
18:59 or so: This is honestly where this tech is more important. Airplanes are unlikely to be improved by this, synthetic fuels are probably a better answer there. But heavy machinery and large land-based vehicles are harmed less by their fueling system needing to be larger - which is the primary problem with using hydrogen.
Great to see improvements in fuel cell technology.
I am looking forward to seeing someone develop a hydrogen generator that can produce sufficient hydrogen for the fuel cells consumption without having to store large amounts of a dangerous substance. i.e. produce it as required?? that would be a real breakthrough.
Great work ZeroAvia. You are developing a power source for the future of the world. I wish you all the success possible.
So many Russian engineers and scientists on Zeroavia's team. It's inspiring to see them contributing to global progress and innovation. And sad - because many of them were forced to leave Russia to escape military service or jail - if they protested. Many clever, bright-minded and good people have been immigrating from Russia all the way since the 19th century. We keep creating horrible conditions for development and innovation.
*It makes more sense to burn the hydrogen in a gas turbine powering a large propeller!*
There has been a recent discovery of several natural hydrogen (deposits)..if I’m not mistaken, anyone know more about the quality and cost of collecting natural hydrogen?
Mixed up with all sorts of other stuff and there is nowhere near enough of the stuff anyway.
useful hydrogen, aka compressed hydrogen storage, is not energy dense it is around 600 wh/kg and 300 wh/l at 5000 psi. If you increase the psi, you increase wh/l but decrease wh/kg.
Storage of hydrogen makes hydrogen fuel cells are impractical.
For now.
Graphene storage looks promising
When the thumbnail says, "+350% power!", it might as well be one bajillion kajillion power! You mean, more than a Tardigrade? Awful.
Can you please explain/translate your above comment as though to an 8 year old that was shaken as a baby? I've reread it 5 or 6 times now and am quite intrigued.
I wasn't award tardigrades were a unit of power. You on the pipe again, Craig?
??
Chapters would be nice. Great episode!
There are very few hydrogen fueling stations.
Any hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is NOT going to succeed in America, that is for certain.
Battery EVs can be charged anywhere, even in your home garage. That kind of advantage cannot be beaten.
Also the faster the aircraft moves the more efficient the cooling, and the more power you can generate without overheating, up to the point that aerodynamic heating occurs
Interesting video. It would be nice to see a diagram or animation about how the turbo is integrated into this design and how the propulsion is achieved. I'm struggling to understand how the energy is transported and managed in this engine - even though I understand turbos and fuel cells independently.
Interesting here are some thoughts.... The fuel cell with hot water leaving cell could be built into heat engine piston which could allow for pulsed high temperature and cooling cycles. This allows higher peak temperatures with lower average temperatures, so get electricity from fuel cell, and heat engine also provides comprssion and maybe some extra electricity.
"The answer? slap a turbo, and if that dont work, slap more turbo."
Hydrogen is hopelessly inefficient. You have to make it (85%), liquefy it (70%), distribute it, store it, dispense it and convert it back into electricity (50%).
Well, ok but with fossil fuels you have to extract it, refine it, distribute it, dispense it. It's more energy dense when you do all that, but even so.
@@jamesdeath3477 You’re welcome to quote figures, but efficiency is a meaningless metric for an energy source that isn’t made and is non renewable.
@@fredbloggs5902 Oil is renewable they have lied for years about this, it is not created from the decomposition of organic matter as often told.
They have never managed to create crude oil in a lab for this reason, also many planets or moons have hydrocarbons on them but no organic matter which shows 100% this is false.
Oil is Abiotic process created deep in the earth and is created constantly, the idea that we will run out of oil is just nonsense to keep everyone in fear.
During ww2 the germans created synthetic oil for their war machine as they understood how its actually produced, later these scientists came over to work for Rockefeller who then kept this quiet as there was more profit if they kept the lie going that it was going to run out soon.
Also many oil oilmen have said that old dry wells will fill back up over time as the oil in coming up from deep in the earth and we are only tapping little pools of it not deep down where it is created.
@@fredbloggs5902 I don't follow. Why is it meaningless? I don't have any figures, but surely there is a pretty direct comparison to be made between the efficiency of an internal combustion engine and a hydrogen engine? And also the costs of the things that you can compare, such as distribution.
@@jamesdeath3477 Because the comparison should be between using electricity directly vs. via hydrogen.
Hydrogen is just a way of storing energy, it is NOT the energy source.
Fossil fuels are a finite resource that is not renewable.
This is a seriously great video. This looks like very promising tech.
How the hell can the fuel cell be developed in the 1960s and now sixty years later the we have not really progressed with this technology ??? Finally others are picking up the torch and going forward. Good luck to you guys !!!!
Current "conventional" fuel cell systems are in so many ways a few times, to orders of magnitude worse than turbine engines for powering flight. Sure, increasing the temperature gives you a number of interesting potential benefits, decreasing the number of times worse and orders of magnitude worse some aspects are compared to turbine engines. Developing such systems is closer to basic research than commercialization of known technologies. The basic fact that Toyota et. al. haven't chosen that route, with their billions of dollars spent on R&D suggests it's not realistic that some startup will figure out how to design a system that's much better than low temperature systems. And, just a few times better still won't make it fuel cells viable for powering airplanes.
If they can achieve 2 kW/kg on a system level, fuel cell system, not including tanks, or motors, but everything needed to turn hydrogen into power, and make it reliable, with reasonable energy efficiency, that would be very impressive, but still really really bad for aviation.
One of many issues with fuel cells is that each molecule of oxygen and hydrogen needs to find it's "partner" to react with, from either side of a membrane, on a molecular level. That is a huge fundamental issue, and among other things, that means, for any given system, the higher the power output the lower the efficiency will be, which makes aviation the worst possible application for fuel cells.
A comparison, for jet engines, it depends in the engine and size of the bird if the motor ingesting a bird is a significant issue or not. For fuel cells, even grains of pollen invisible to the naked eye that gets into the fuel cell is an issue that will reduce performance and efficiency. For a jet engine, pollen that gets sucked in are bonus fuel.
While hydrogen isn't a very practical fuel for anything that needs to have reasonable cost, and turbine engines are not easy to develop, developing a hydrogen turbine engine electric hybrid system could be considered very reasonable, compared to fuel cell based system, for aviation.
Maybe a Fuel Cell combo for Ammonia, it's dubious too, but Chemists have the potential energy density of so-called Nuclear Reactions to reiterate underlying phenomena to find different strategies of using Catalysts in solid states.
INCREDIBLE! How there are people out there really working for a better world! Imagine a world without the pollution of Airplane Engines?!
Very cool tech, but I feel like the information wasn't delivered very well. It's fairly often that the people working on these projects hands on, have a hard time explaining it in the moment or "on the spot". It's your job to take said information, break it down, and explain it, in a digestible manner.
So far what I got from this is hydrogen fuel cell built similar to the construction of a stereotypical anode cathode battery cell, that is able to withstand a high temperature environment. Somewhere along the line The high temperature environment is able to utilize turbochargers and that somehow increases efficiency. Being that it's a turbocharger it would have to be on the exhaust end... But where is their exhaust in the system? Is that just the air flowing through the ducks on the motor of the propeller driven craft? Can this be scaled up to use jet turbines? Still quite a few unknowns. I feel given the length of this video these answers should be resolved.
Bonus that the (waste) heat can be used now - curious if the platinum can be recycled out of the stack at the end of life. Pretty cool stuff.
It's very interesting. How does it compare efficiency-wise to just burning the hydrogen in a modified jet turbine?
Good question. Modern jet engines are around 70% efficient I believe.
Use graphite to separate the gases, this is more conductive and way more resilient to corrosion
This looks promising. Now, we just need breakthroughs in all the other areas of hydrogen.
30% energy loss of turning green energy to hydrogen.
30% energy loss to compress or cryogenicly cool hydrogen for storage.
Hydrogen is one of the hardest fuels to store and transport.
Nice. Would be great even for scaling down where paramotors can run off hydrogen instead of heavy batteries.
Did they use kapton on MEA to insulate electron flow or just for supporting. Also is Kapton proton permeable?
What is even cooler, is that people like "Jeremiah" as on the breakthrough of the Nikola Tesla's two stage turbine. (Which is a turbine and a pump, in one.) It is so good, that it literally can convert even wet steam, into ice.
That means that solar panels are about to become as efficient as a generator. (90-95%). Even fuels, like petrol, diesel and hydrogen, will become 90-95% efficient, instead of the 35%-65%, like they are now. While using less expensive equipment.
an aeroplane that wont burst into flames when it crashes sounds pretty game changing..
What is the turbine/solar panel to propulsion efficiency?
110% derpa derpa
@@billbaden742
I think the person who states that 110% is an engineering thing is a redneck mate.
An additional source of application is the space industry and of course the Military for a power source for electro rocket fuel for attitude trusters and short term controlled propulsion.
As h2 has to be mainly highly pressurised and refrigerated to keep it and requires then large carbon containers to store. Can they not use Ammonia at full strength to give them H3. Also once in a high altitude you could use atmospheric water vapour to give endless hydrogen from water vapour as well as the oxygen in atmosphere, that would require supper amounts air harvesting cells, Buts its weights is negligible due to not requiring fuel once initial lift and height achieved. Love there approach
Hydrogen is the answer !
Agreed 100%
Thank you for your work in this field ❤
In charge of some forty security people at four adjacent facilities, owned by Mobile oil. I provided four people to secure a considerable area when hydrogen was being delivered. All staff and visitors were informed. We could evacuate ten thousand people and had to prepare several fire stations with a dozen tenders. Delivery of a truckload of atomic bombs might have been more safe. Prior, I was required to report on preparations and submit a report afterwards. Frequently a senior manager observed the proceedings.
Hydrogen is a notorious element to store. Whoever cracks a low loss or even a no loss method of hydrogen storage will be the winner in the coming decades.
Methanol. There's a reason Maersk is already using it.
You should capture the moisture and use the heat to break it down again breaking down moisture into hydrogen and oxygen is easier than most people know.
How does the catalyst hold up in practice?
Stupid idea , but cant you use te heat in the exaust and inject it with the 0² produced into the hot air to create steam before the turbo that will increase the pressure in the turbo making it spin faster ?
Looking good! Best of luck!
Just go for it - your dedication is amasing❤️
What is the exhaust flow that is spinning the turbo? Is it the water vapor biproduct of the fuel cell?
Also, anything that needs cooling can be built in to the airplane fuselage. and then it passively cools it self then you fly.
What is the final efficiency reached?
+350% from what to what efficiency.
Is NOx an issue with high temperatures in a fuel cell?
As I understand, simply heating gaseous nitrogen in presence of oxygen will not form NOx gasses! This can be done with molecules containing Nitrogen (like Aluminium Nitrate), but not gas. ICE engines produce NOx due to the explosive combustion process in the cylinders.
Seems great for power output but did I miss the efficiency figures?
Cathode Electrode is actually a redundent term since Cathode is a portmanteau of Cat(positive) plus ode(last part of electrode).
"ode" means "path"
Diode = two paths
Triode = three paths
Cathode = positive path
Anode = negative path
Anode' was coined by William Whewell at Michael Faraday's request, derived from the Greek words ἄνο (ano), 'upwards' and ὁδός (hodós), 'a way'
Cathode comes from the Greek words κάτω (kato), 'downwards' and ὁδός (hodós), 'a way'.
@@PaulG.x Thanks for the info.
One of the challenges will be nitrogen oxide formation at high temperatures... the main reason why catalytic converters were added to cars 50+ years ago.
Pity politicians aren't as smart as these people.
I'd argue this technology is insane! I mean if some guy came up to me and started babbling techno speak at me and saying it would change the world I'd assume he was insane. 😅
I first learnt about this 'change the world' thing 50 years ago, it will be around for some time.
@@lpjunction im only 40 and my whole life ive known about this so called "world changing invention" propaganda BS...
the joy of reading too much?
iunno. all i see is a civilisation that rapidly built a house of cards up upon something intangible... went mad with the urge to create but lost sight of what they were creating FOR... rather than some actual goal, a purpose, we aimed for a delusional sense of "value" placed upon things... no common purpose, other than to have "high tech" and "progress", pretending that the house of cards is a solid structure and permanent and this is the way it always has been, always will be... neglecting that only a mere century ago there were basically no cars at all... no planes... people walked, rode or slowly steamed...
but before steam? walk. ride.
everything we buy is just a distraction from our own existence. do we need that widescreen TV, that subscription service, that uber ride? how did the human race get to this point of absolute reliance on other people, and everyone is in this insane race for "the top" of some intangible scrap heap that none of us can truly name? what are we actually working towards, what is the POINT of all this?
how can you have a "billionaire" co-exist with a homeless urchin with nothing but scars and bruises and resentment?
but nothing has really changed in the last century, either. sure, we got flashy phones and beeping things, and shiny cars but really, what has CHANGED?
stuck in a rut, thats where we are. an endless loop of futility... "faster communication, better networking"..."information technology!"
DATA!
ENERGY!!!
wtf is it all FOR?
people once made statues, or invented flutes and violins or pianos... invented TV... isolated LSD... made the helicopter... the weaving loom... the turret lathe. the golf tee! why? a better life. boredom, they had nothing to distract them! freedom, they had no mortgage or financial insecurity (hopefully? ha ha...sucks to be a pauper!) or government agency dictating how they do things...
now we just have stagnant re-hashing of the same old ideas that didnt work then, wont work now... but we all _heard_ of such things, thanks to "education", we all have these half arsed theories on how things work, explanations... and just like legends of say, jason and his argonauts, or maybe the aboriginal dreamtime, etc etc... how about the schools that refuse to teach "evolution"? or cultural/religious norms that have "possessed persons marry a dog so as to free them of the demonic possession"... yes, that stuff still happens in this modern world.
myths abound... one persons explanation may be right. another thousand peoples explanations will be wrong... did your teacher understand the ins and outs of electricity when they taught you "how batteries and lightbulbs work"? no. they had the vaguest comprehension, more than likely incorrect, themselves. and they just "educated" generations of children over their career... just repeated the same misunderstandings, and all those children, like chinese whispers, built their OWN misunderstandings...
but they all "know how electricity works", right? they were tested, graded!
anyway. so, when "new tech" comes out, its really easy to convince a population that only have the vaguest understanding, often completely wrong and misguided understanding, of how something works, that that object will be "the next best thing since sliced bread..."
the modern world is a facade, a shiny bauble intended to distract ones attention from the underlying rot and shoddy fabrication of the underlying support structure. polished turds are still turds.
and diamonds are relatively useless anyway! (ignores industrial applications...)
How much power needed for electrolysis ?.
That still doesn’t address the volatility of hydrogen, particularly in a crash situation! I still see no future of hydrogen in aviation unless the volatility can be managed and fully controlled in a crash situation! To develop a powerful turbine is the least of all challenges!