Could Hrdrogyn Power Airplanes....

Question

In the ten to twenty year future... could major manufacturers like boeing and airbus create Hydrogyn powered aircraft via combustion... I am basing this on that hydrogyn is widely availible in the location.

Answer 1

"Hydrogen" is spelt so.

It is correct to say that though it could be done without violating the laws of thermodynamics, it would not be practical in aviation terms.  Hydrogen fuel must be stored in compressed/liquefied form, and the containers would be too heavy for practical flight.

Answer 2

Hydrogen.  Hard to s***w that up with a spell-checker.  The trouble with Hydrogen, is the high energy-cost of seperating it from other compounds or elements to refine it (water is an obvious 'ore' to refine it from, being abundant and cheap, with valuable Oxygen also produced) and then the storage of Hydrogen.  Being the smallest molecule (in gaseous form, it is just one H atom, being one electron orbiting one proton) it is really good at getting out of porous containers, or finding its' way out of valves if they aren't really well-made.

       To get a viable amount of energy from its' combustion, you need a large volume of it compared to say, petrol or aviation fuel, so an airliner carrying Hydrogen would either have a very short range, or such huge fuel-tanks it would look like it had swallowed another airliner!

        Looks like a 'no' then.

Answer 3

The critical word in your question is "could." The answer to "could" is yes. Would it be practical? no.

If you used liquid hydrogen for power, it would require a tank about four times as large as a tank of regular gasoline to contain the same amount of energy, and even larger for the same amount of energy as jet fuel. Yes, liquid hydrogen isn't  necessarily heavier, but it takes up more room. [look up the law of entropy]

If it were a practical fuel, we would already be using it.

Answer 4

Hydrogen will never power an airliner, for the reason that it requires heavy tanks to store it at 10kpsi, and that it provides a fraction of the power for the volume of fuel.

The truth is that hydrogen is almost useless. Hydrogen cars have shorter ranges than electric cars, and are not nearly as efficient as gasoline.

The only technologies that could power an airliner are hydogen peroxide fuel cells (which are up to 16 time as powerful as a battery of the same weight) and hydrogen peroxide engines. In the fuel cell, it is reacted with aluminum and the ions are used for power. In the engine, it is used as an oxidizer and used to burn sugar. Becuasr it is a liquid and does not have a compression stroke, the expnsion stroke can be much longer to take advantage of the 700:1 expansion of the reaction.

There are running models of both the fuel cells and engines. They are already more powerful and cheaper than hydrogen fuel cells, and they use a resource that is already produced in large amounts and is available for $3 a gallon. It is also more powerful per gallon.

Answer 5

Boeing has already flown a small technology demonstrator powered by a Hydrogen fuel cell. But hydrogen is not efficient. That has never been its selling point. Using the Hydrogen in a fuel cell does not produce pollution, that is the advantage of hydrogen. Also, using current methods it actually takes more energy to create the hydrogen gas than you get from it when you run the fuel cell. So something else needs to change before it really become a viable replacement. As far as I know, hydrogen is not best used as a combustion material, that is why the fuel cell technology was developed in the first place.