Research on Fuel Cells by HySA,National Aerospace Centre and Airbus

World’s leading aircraft manufacturer Airbus has joined hands with South Africa’s National Aerospace Centre for jointly funding the Hydrogen South Africa (HySA).This is basically for Research on Fuel Cells for commercial airlines.

Its a three years project which was launched at Cape Town .The demand for Air Transportation is multiplying every year.As per research there will be a requirement for 30,000 new aircraft by 2032. With the increasing prices of Aviation Turbine Fuel and increased CO2 emissions, there is a drive for inventing new methods for flying the aircraft. Many companies are researching on the utilization of various fuel instead of ATF.

Airbus will be using the hydrogen fuel cells for powering the aircraft instead of Auxiliary Power Unit (APU)  .Airbus is currently doing a big Research on Fuel Cells. The use of hydrogen fuel cells will reduce the noise on ground and will power the on board electricity.

“This fuel cell project with HySA Systems Competence Centre and the National Aerospace Centre, is the latest element of Airbus’s Research and Technology initiative with South Africa, which was launched in 2006 and involves collaboration with several of the country’s universities and research institutes.  It underlines our commitment to South Africa, which is a significant market, hosts some of our most important suppliers and is a vital knowledge partner for Airbus” explained Dale King, Airbus’ Senior Manager, Emerging Technologies and Concepts.

HySA Systems Director, Professor Bruno G. Pollet, said that “although fuel cell technology for land vehicles has rapidly matured, the new research with Airbus and the National Aerospace Centre is aimed at gaining an understanding of how hydrogen fuel cells could perform over an aircraft’s service life while subjected to the harsh and rapidly changing climatic and environmental regimes that commercial jetliners operate in”. 

The use of hydrogen cells will be the game changer in aviation industry.Fuel cells will even reduce the weight of the aircraft and thus increasing the payload . As a by product from fuel cell, aircraft will be able to self manufacture the water.Fuel cell requires less maintenance and do not have any moving part in them.

Research on Fuel Cells is being done for fuel cell performance,their practical utilization and age of fuel cells.