Airbus is developing new cryogenic hydrogen storage tanks for future liquid hydrogen powered aircraft. The company calls them “cold heart”, they are at the heart of the new ZEROe hydrogen airplane. Hydrogen is key to our mission to bring zero-emission aircraft to market, but it must be stored at an extremely low temperature of -253°C. “Using this technology means developing innovative cryogenic hydrogen storage tanks.”

Airbus explains that there are two main technologies that allow an airplane to fly directly on hydrogen: powering a hydrogen-burning engine via modified gas turbine engines, or using hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity. Another option is a hybrid approach that uses a combination of both technologies.

“But regardless of these options, there is a constant job: Hydrogen has to be very cold. It must be stored at -253°C and kept at that temperature throughout the flight, even when the tanks are empty.”

For this reason, fuel tanks for hydrogen-powered aircraft are a crucial component of future hydrogen-powered flights. However, they are difficult to design as they are completely different from what you would find in a conventional airplane.

To develop these tanks, Airbus established Zero Emissions Development Centers (ZEDC) in Nantes, France, and Bremen, Germany, which share the responsibility of introducing this new technology. Tanks are manufactured in Nantes, cooling chambers for gasification of liquid hydrogen are manufactured in Bremen.

“Such rapid production of the first tank is a true testament to the collaborative work across our businesses. We want to optimize the tank to increase efficiency and further reduce its environmental impact: after all, a zero-emission aircraft should be as close to zero emissions throughout its lifecycle as possible,” said ZEROe Aircraft Manufacturing. President Chris Redfern.

The engineers say the next step is to take a critical look at the prototype and ask what they could do better. The team is gathering information from this first model and testing the data to work on a second prototype that will be filled with hydrogen.

The main goals of the team are to maximize space, increase productivity and simplify the production process. This second prototype will take about another year to build and test, and the ultimate goal is to have the tank ready for installation on an A380 demo vehicle by 2026-2028.