AETHER

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£5,227,785

Aug. 31, 2022

Aug. 31, 2024

The UK is leading the world in its drive for Net-Zero Emissions by 2050\. Aviation remains critical to the UK for global commerce as well as maintaining its position as one of the largest aerospace industrial suppliers worldwide. To achieve the goals of net-zero emissions and industrial strength employing thousands of people in design, materials, manufacturing, integration and distribution in the UK worth billions of pounds in export revenues, means developing sustainable aviation.

The UK has an enviable reputation in leading high performance aerospace development through academia and industry. The drive to reducing emissions from aviation is now focusing on hydrogen as a zero CO2 emission fuel for commercial aircraft up to single aisle such as the Airbus A320-size planes, by the mid to late 2030s.

To deliver hydrogen fuelled aircraft technologies is a major challenge as the cryogenic temperature coupled with hydrogen compatibility with different materials and the obvious safety case, needs significant development. In addition to this, the storage tanks must be very light to ensure economically viable range and payloads. Current liquid hydrogen ground and space-based tanks will not meet this need.

The fabrication processes developed in Aether have the additional benefits of low waste manufacture typically 5% compared to conventional aerospace manufacturing where less than 10% of the material bought remains in the final product. This represents significant further energy and hence CO2 emission savings in the supply chain.

The development of the scalable technology for these tanks by the consortium partners optimising the use of different material systems to meet all functional needs of tanks for long life, safe aviation use, provides the UK with unique opportunities to generate advanced tank technologies with worldwide markets.

The Consortium build on a 30-year history of innovative metal and polymer composite research across multiple sectors to be in a position to develop scalable manufacturing methods capable of delivering large, safe, long service life hydrogen storage tanks for aviation use in the future.

Developing this technology in the UK enhances the existing UK manufacturing and export market position. This creates new advanced engineering and manufacturing jobs supplying UK aerospace, space and automotive sectors and delivers on UK pledges for Net-Zero emissions by 2050\.

World leadership in hydrogen for transport is essential to move beyond hydrocarbon fuels and augments electrification through clean onboard hybrids or fuel cell power generation. But this needs light-weight hydrogen tanks.