Blueshift chosen as official thermal protection system supplier for Lilium’s production eVTOL aircraft

Lil­i­um, devel­op­er of the first all-elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) jet, has select­ed Blueshift to be the offi­cial sup­pli­er of ther­mal pro­tec­tion sys­tems (TPS) for its ini­tial series pro­duc­tion air­craft.

As part of the agree­ment, Blueshift will sup­ply its rev­o­lu­tion­ary AeroZe­ro^® TPS, which will fit with­in Lilium’s bat­tery design to help pre­vent burn through and mit­i­gate the risk of ther­mal run­away prop­a­ga­tion. 

Tim Burbey, Pres­i­dent at Blueshift, said: “We’re thrilled to announce our new­found part­ner­ship with Lil­i­um – a leader in the eVTOL air­craft indus­try. We are sup­ply­ing our AeroZe­ro^® TPS, which pro­vides key pro­tec­tion to Lilium’s core bat­tery com­po­nents and will help ensure seam­less oper­a­tion of their air­craft. 

“We’re look­ing for­ward to work­ing with the team at Lil­i­um in pro­tect­ing their bat­tery packs and oth­er crit­i­cal areas with­in their air­craft. Our part­ner­ship will prove the incom­pa­ra­ble ben­e­fits of our tech­nol­o­gy in pro­mot­ing a more sus­tain­able method of trans­porta­tion.”  

Blueshift’s tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides pro­tec­tion of car­bon fibre com­pos­ites and thin metal­lic hous­ing and parts, such as alu­mini­um, tita­ni­um and steel. All of Blueshift’s prod­ucts are flame retar­dant, less than 1.5mm thick and have a very low ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty and ther­mal dif­fu­siv­i­ty. 

Key appli­ca­tions include direct flame and ther­mal pro­tec­tion for bat­ter­ies and their enclo­sures, com­pos­ite hous­ings, struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers, as well as help­ing mit­i­gate fire prop­a­ga­tion from ther­mal run­away in pow­er-dense bat­ter­ies.

Many of Blueshift’s prod­ucts are cur­rent­ly being eval­u­at­ed and inte­grat­ed into dif­fer­ent areas with­in bat­tery packs, bat­tery hous­ing, exter­nal skin/wing pro­tec­tion, and oth­er areas of eVTOLs and elec­tric-pow­ered air­crafts. 

The Lil­i­um Pio­neer Edi­tion Jet is the first planned mod­el of the Lil­i­um Jet and will com­fort­ably seat four pas­sen­gers on esti­mat­ed non-stop flights of up to 175 km at 250 km/h at launch. The first manned flight of the Lil­i­um Jet is sched­uled for late 2024, with entry into ser­vice expect­ed in 2026.

Mar­tin Schuebel, Lilium’s Senior Vice Pres­i­dent Pro­cure­ment, added: “Blueshift’s ther­mal pro­tec­tion sys­tem is light, thin and easy to incor­po­rate into our strict design require­ments, while pro­duc­ing excep­tion­al ther­mal results.”