The "solid hydrogen" unmanned aircraft made its first flight



    The drone, shown in the announcement photo, is not much different from conventional aircraft models that enthusiasts make. Outwardly, there are no differences. But then its fuel system is different from everything that drones used before.

    The developers of the system call it "solid fuel," and the fuel itself is called "solid hydrogen." This is not entirely true, but close to the real state of things. We all know that the production of solid hydrogen requires ultra-low temperatures, which is impossible or very difficult to achieve on a drone scale. But the inventors did not use cryogenic equipment. Instead, hydrogen was chemically bonded using a special chemical compound. This is a solid substance, which the creators of the hydrogen UAV divided into square granules with a side length of 1 cm. When the granule is slightly heated, it releases hydrogen, providing a stable gas supply to the fuel cell.

    By the way, a more complex project was previously proposed by Airbus - only in this case, the company's specialists used liquid hydrogen, which was stored at ultra-low temperatures. Naturally, such a system is too complex (and possibly dangerous) for its wide distribution.



    As for the "solid fuel", it uses a special cartridge, which houses about 100 hydrogen granules, which were mentioned above. To prevent melting of the active element, a special polymer is also used (which one is not reported). Hydrogen released during heating enters the fuel cell, where electricity is generated. And UAV motors are already running on electricity.

    The test flight lasted only 10 minutes at an altitude of 80 meters. The developers decided to play it safe in order to study the state of the UAV fuel system after landing. In general, the amount of fuel loaded on board should have been enough for 2 hours of flight - and would have been enough if the plane had not been prematurely put on the ground.

    The advantage of the aircraft fuel system is that it can be scaled. “If you load twice as much fuel into the system, then you will stay in the air twice as long - this is the difference between our system and batteries,” the author of the project said.

    According to the developers, such systems can be ideal assistants to meteorologists, environmental specialists, climatologists, who study the Arctic and Antarctic. The total mass of the drone with fuel is less than the mass of the drone with a battery system, which has enough energy for a similar flight range. Plus, the airplane does not give harmful emissions, water is the product of hydrogen combustion.

    Representatives of the aircraft industry are already interested in the hydrogen fuel system. So, the French company Safran asked Cella (it was this company that developed the new fuel system) to create an analogue of its system for a conventional aircraft. Only in this case we are talking about generating electricity for the needs of passengers and crew, ICE in this case remain in place.

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