Lilium Chooses Honeywell to Provide “More Sustainable, Efficient Thermal System For Electric Jet”

Lil­i­um has cho­sen Hon­ey­well to pro­vide its ther­mal man­age­ment sys­tem for the all-elec­tric Lil­i­um Jet, reports a press release. The Ger­man-based eVTOL com­pa­ny has select­ed Honeywell’s MicroVCS (Vapor Cycle Sys­tem) to opti­mise cab­in cool­ing and man­age the aircraft’s elec­tric bat­tery tem­per­a­tures, both crit­i­cal func­tions for enabling more effi­cient and sus­tain­able flight.

The part­ner­ship will inte­grate the sys­tem into the Lil­i­um Jet, which also fea­tures Honeywell’s Anthem Avion­ics, DENSO elec­tric motors and flight con­trols. The Jet which is on track to begin pro­duc­tion soon will help cre­ate a more effi­cient, sus­tain­able and acces­si­ble mode of high-speed trans­porta­tion for peo­ple and goods.

Yves Yem­si, COO of Lil­i­um, remarked, “In our col­lab­o­ra­tion, we’ve tapped into the numer­ous advan­tages of the MicroVCS, rein­forc­ing the syn­er­gis­tic val­ue with a sin­gle, inno­v­a­tive sup­pli­er pro­vid­ing mul­ti­ple sub­sys­tems for the Lil­i­um Jet. Honeywell’s inno­v­a­tive sub­sys­tems offer a renewed per­spec­tive on aero­space pos­si­bil­i­ties.”

We are pleased to announce that the Lil­i­um Jet will fea­ture Honeywell’s first-of-its-kind Micro Vapor Cycle (MVC) Sys­tem for both cab­in cool­ing and bat­tery cool­ing. This onboard sys­tem elim­i­nates the need for spe­cial ground ther­mal man­age­ment sys­tems for the Lil­i­um Jet. #eVTOL https://t.co/rD154VKLTM

— Lil­i­um (@Lilium) Decem­ber 4, 2023

The MicroVCS high-speed, oil-free cen­trifu­gal com­pres­sor tech­nol­o­gy “allows the sys­tem to be 22 per­cent lighter than con­ven­tion­al screw or scroll com­pres­sor-based vapor cycle cool­ing sys­tems, explains the release. “The weight sav­ings avoid 9,900 lbs of CO2 emis­sions per year in an Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty air­craft.* Addi­tion­al­ly, the MicroVCS uses Hon­ey­well Sol­stice© zd refrig­er­ant, with an ultra-low Glob­al Warm­ing Poten­tial (GWP) of 1, which is 99.9 per­cent low­er than R‑134a used in com­peti­tor sys­tems. Hon­ey­well Sol­stice© zd pro­vides 10 per­cent bet­ter hot-day pow­er effi­cien­cy than the lega­cy R‑134a refrig­er­ant when used in an equiv­a­lent refrig­er­a­tion cycle.” **

Dave Shill­i­day, Hon­ey­well VP and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty, com­ment­ed, “The MicroVCS is a ready-now solu­tion that embod­ies Honeywell’s ded­i­ca­tion to cre­at­ing a more sus­tain­able future for air trav­el. This tech­nol­o­gy is a great fit for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty vehi­cles, but its ver­sa­til­i­ty also enables it to be seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed into oth­er appli­ca­tions, such as busi­ness avi­a­tion and defence air­craft.”

Yves Yem­si

The part­ner­ship shows Honeywell’s con­tin­ued ded­i­ca­tion to devel­op­ing solu­tions that not only her­ald a more sus­tain­able and advanced future for avi­a­tion, from autonomous tech­nolo­gies to ther­mal man­age­ment solu­tions, but an exten­sive array of aero­space prod­ucts and solu­tions at the fore­front of the industry’s evo­lu­tion.

* For a duct­ed, vec­tored thrust elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing vehi­cle, with an effec­tive lift-drag ratio of 16, fly­ing 4,000 hours per year, and being charged from a U.S. pow­er grid.

** Based on hot day of 40°C = Inter­na­tion­al Stan­dard Atmos­phere (ISA) con­di­tions + 25°C.  

For more infor­ma­tion

www.lilium.com

www.honeywell.com/us/en 

(Top image: Lil­i­um Jet — Cred­it: Lil­i­um)