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Airbus UpNext, Toshiba “to Collaborate on Superconductivity Research for Hydrogen Powered Aircraft”

Air­bus UpNext, a sub­sidiary of Air­bus, and Toshi­ba Ener­gy Sys­tems & Solu­tions Cor­po­ra­tion, the com­pa­ny group’s ener­gy arm, are to col­lab­o­rate on super­con­duct­ing tech­nolo­gies for future hydro­gen-pow­ered air­craft, reports a press release. 

Hydro­gen-pow­ered air­craft is one promis­ing solu­tion to achieve net zero emis­sion by 2050. The release explains, “Super­con­duct­ing tech­nolo­gies offer a unique advan­tage for these air­craft, using ‑253°C liq­uid hydro­gen as a fuel but also to effi­cient­ly cool the elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems.” 

It con­tin­ues, “Cryo­genic tech­nol­o­gy could allow for a near­ly unim­paired pow­er trans­mis­sion with­in the elec­tric sys­tems of the air­craft, sig­nif­i­cant­ly improv­ing their ener­gy effi­cien­cy and per­for­mance.” The part­ners aim to co-devel­op a two-megawatt super­con­duct­ing motor. 

The agree­ment was signed in Tokyo, dur­ing the Japan Inter­na­tion­al Aero­space Exhi­bi­tion 2024, by Dr Grze­gorz Ombach, Air­bus Senior VP and Head of Dis­rup­tive R&T and Tsu­to­mu Takeuchi, Direc­tor of Toshi­ba Ener­gy Sys­tems & Solu­tions Corps. 

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Ombach com­ment­ed, “Through this col­lab­o­ra­tion, we aim to deliv­er a break­through tech­nol­o­gy that could unlock new design pos­si­bil­i­ties, in par­tic­u­lar for Air­bus’ future hydro­gen-pow­ered air­craft.”

Takeuchi added, “We both recog­nise the tremen­dous poten­tial of super­con­duct­ing tech­nolo­gies in shap­ing the future of air­craft and dri­ving the decar­bon­i­sa­tion of the avi­a­tion indus­try. We are con­fi­dent that our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Air­bus will play a key role in advanc­ing next-gen­er­a­tion tech­nolo­gies for the aero­space sec­tor.”

Dur­ing the past 10 years, Air­bus has made efforts to de-risk such tech­nolo­gies. Recent­ly, Air­bus UpNext launched Cry­oprop, a demon­stra­tor to test a two megawatt-class super­con­duct­ing elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem. 

Mean­while, Toshi­ba has been car­ry­ing out R&D on these appli­ca­tions for near­ly half a cen­tu­ry and has released its own two megawatt-class super­con­duc­tiv­i­ty motor pro­to­type for mobil­i­ty appli­ca­tions in June 2022.

The agree­ment sign­ing: (l to r) Ludovic Ybanez, Air­bus Head of Cry­oprop demon­stra­tor and Cryo­gen­ics tech­nol­o­gy, Dr Grze­gorz Ombach, Tsu­to­mu Takeuchi, Ken­suke Suzu­ki, Head of New Tech­nol­o­gy, Pow­er Sys­tem Divi­sion, Toshi­ba Ener­gy Sys­tems & Solu­tions Corps.

For more infor­ma­tion 

https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/innovation-ecosystem/airbus-upnext

https://www.global.toshiba/ww/company/energy.html

(Images Air­bus Upnext/Toshiba Ener­gy sys­tems)

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