We’re developing innovative cryogenic tanks to make hydrogen-powered flight a reality

Hydrogen is key to our mission to bring zero-emissions aircraft to market by 2035, but it needs to be stored at an exceptionally chilly -253°C. To use this technology means developing innovative cryogenic hydrogen storage tanks. Luckily, we have teams around our network with just the right set of skills to build them…

We’re constantly looking to harness innovative technologies to help us achieve our goal of bringing zero-emissions aircraft to market by 2035. A fairly fundamental aspect of this is how we will power such an aircraft. As such, we’re putting a lot of effort into harnessing what we believe to be a very compelling option: hydrogen. 

In its simplest terms, there are two main technologies that enable an aircraft to fly directly with hydrogen. You can power an engine with hydrogen combustion through modified gas turbine engines, and you can use hydrogen fuel cells to create electrical power. And you can deploy a hybrid approach that uses a mixture of both technologies.

But regardless of these options there is a constant at work: hydrogen has to be kept very cold. It needs to be stored at -253°C, and kept at that temperature consistently throughout the whole flight, even when the tanks are depleted.

Storage tanks for a hydrogen-powered aircraft are therefore an absolutely essential component, but they are completely different to those you might find on a traditional aircraft. We immediately recognised that getting these tanks right would be vital to the success of our ZEROe aircraft, so about 15 months ago we established Zero Emission Development Centres (ZEDCs) in Nantes, France, and Bremen, Germany, with the task of designing and manufacturing the hydrogen tanks, and set to work.