14 DAY TRIAL // Soon, electric aircrafts could be flying in the skies and they could be built using the most advanced electric systems, thanks to superconductors. These projects may still be on the drawing boards for now, but the fact is they could be far more efficient than conventional aircraft, produce less greenhouse emissions and be quieter.
Like all human activities involving combustion, operating powered aircraft (from airliners to hot air balloons) releases greenhouse gases, soot and other pollutants into the atmosphere. In addition, there are several types of environmental impact specific to aviation, like nitrogen compounds that interact with ozone, increasing its concentrations.
In fact, in many countries aviation is the fastest growing source of carbon emissions. The day-to-day problems faced by the air traffic control system are primarily related to the volume of air traffic demand placed on the system.
In fact, air traffic is constantly increasing, but it comes at a price in terms of the emissions driving climate change. A team of scientists may have a solution to neutralize the impact of air travel on the environment.
Philippe Masson and Cesar Luongo from Florida State University, who have collaborated with Gerald Brown at NASA and Danielle Soban at Georgia Institute of Technology, say that the next generation of jet airliners could be using superconductor motors that will diminish the environmental impact.
Since superconductors lose no energy through electrical resistance, they could be very efficient components for a new type of aircraft propulsion. These engines will have to be high-powered, lightweight and compact.
Unfortunately, present technologies can't offer viable solutions for actually building such an engine, but superconductors do. A superconducting motor would be very lightweight and far more efficient electrically, generating three times the torque of a conventional electric motor for the same energy input and weight.
Another advantage is the fact that these engines are much more silent than the conventional ones, since the combustion of fossils fuels that created much of the noise would be suppressed. The problem of the energy supply of these engines could be solved by using chilly liquid hydrogen to run an electric fuel cell.
Liquid hydrogen is cold enough to make the superconducting magnets work but also has four times as much energy output to weigh ratio higher than classical fuel applications. "We could potentially build a superconducting motor and generator smaller than a gas turbine, which would make possible electric propulsion," says Masson.
All Masson needs now is a partner to come up with the funding for the prototype.