HyPoint reveals its hydrogen fuel cell prototype for aviation and Urban Air Mobility markets

HyPoint, the com­pa­ny devel­op­ing zero-car­bon emis­sion hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems for avi­a­tion and urban air mobil­i­ty, has unveiled the first oper­a­ble pro­to­type of its break­through tur­bo air-cooled hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tem.

Full-scale ver­sions, which are expect­ed to begin ship­ping in 2022, will dri­ve the com­mer­cial devel­op­ment of zero-emis­sion e‑aircraft and eVTOL air­craft for urban air mobil­i­ty and serve an impor­tant role in glob­al efforts to reduce car­bon emis­sions. The com­pa­ny has already signed an agree­ment with Urban Aero­nau­tics to incor­po­rate hydro­gen fuel cell pow­er in its City­Hawk VTOL air­craft.

HyPoint will begin work­ing with the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy’s Nation­al Renew­able Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry (NREL) to fur­ther test and val­i­date its hydro­gen fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy.

Dr. Alex Iva­nenko, founder and CEO of HyPoint, said: “This func­tion­al pro­to­type brings us one step clos­er to our vision of deliv­er­ing effi­cient and cost-effec­tive zero-car­bon emis­sion fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy to the avi­a­tion indus­try, which is expect­ed to con­tribute up to a quar­ter of the world’s green­house gas emis­sions by 2050 if left unchecked.

“The pro­to­type has passed a num­ber of sub­sys­tem tests that strong­ly sug­gest that our patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy and unique approach works — and we’re excit­ed to use NREL’s state-of-the-art test­ing facil­i­ties to fur­ther val­i­date our sys­tem. More­over, we’re thrilled to be a part of the emerg­ing hydro­gen econ­o­my, which seeks to replace harm­ful fos­sil fuels with hydro­gen, the uni­verse’s most abun­dant ener­gy source.” 

HyPoint’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary approach, which was select­ed as a win­ner of the 2020 NASA iTech Ini­tia­tive Cycle II, utilis­es com­pressed air for both cool­ing and oxy­gen sup­ply to deliv­er a high-tem­per­a­ture (HTPEM) fuel cell sys­tem that is three times lighter than com­pa­ra­ble liq­uid-cooled low-tem­per­a­ture (LTPEM) fuel cell sys­tems.

It also lever­ages a num­ber of tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions includ­ing light­weight bipo­lar plates and a high­ly con­duc­tive, cor­ro­sion-resis­tant coat­ing in order to rad­i­cal­ly out­per­form exist­ing sys­tems. As a result, HyPoint says it can deliv­er up to a 50 per cent reduc­tion in total cost of own­er­ship for air­craft mak­ers and empow­er them to cre­ate prac­ti­cal, cost-effec­tive zero-emis­sion vehi­cles. HyPoint’s approach is detailed in a new­ly-released white paper.

The arrival of zero-emis­sion avi­a­tion has been hin­dered by the ener­gy den­si­ty lim­i­ta­tions of lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies and the spe­cif­ic pow­er lim­i­ta­tions of hydro­gen fuel cells.

Test­ing has shown that HyPoint’s tur­bo air-cooled hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tem will be able to achieve up to 2,000 watts per kilo­gram of spe­cif­ic pow­er, which is more than triple the pow­er-to-weight ratio of tra­di­tion­al hydro­gen fuel cells sys­tems. It will also boast up to 1,500 watt-hours per kilo­gram of ener­gy den­si­ty, enabling longer-dis­tance jour­neys.

By address­ing these core tech­no­log­i­cal bar­ri­ers, HyPoint says it will cut years off com­mer­cial deliv­ery time­lines for hydro­gen air­craft and unlock the emerg­ing hydro­gen avi­a­tion mar­ket, which is expect­ed to be val­ued at more than $27 bil­lion in 2030 and at least $174 bil­lion by 2040, accord­ing to Allied Mar­ket Research.

Val Mif­takhov, Founder and CEO of ZeroAvia and who is also on the Advi­so­ry Board at HyPoint, added: “Last year we proved that hydro­gen-elec­tric air­craft are not only pos­si­ble but inevitable — and now we are work­ing hard to get a 100-seat zero-emis­sion air­craft in the skies before 2030.

“The real­i­ty is that hydro­gen fuel cells are the tech­no­log­i­cal dri­ver behind e‑aircraft, and we are work­ing close­ly with the team at HyPoint to test their sys­tems for poten­tial inte­gra­tion into future ZeroAvia air­craft.”