Beschrijving
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A hydrogen-powered aircraft is an airplane that uses hydrogen as a power source. In aircraft hydrogen can either be burned in some kind of jet engine, or other kind of internal combustion engine, or can be used to power a fuel cell to generate electricity to power a propeller. Being an alternative to traditional jet fuel, hydrogen has a higher energy density per unit mass but a lower energy density per unit volume, and containing the hydrogen at high pressure would require a heavy container. In aircraft heavy containers are not an option, and therefore regular carbon fibre tanks are often used, which can only sustain a pressure of 350 bar. When compared to steel hydrogen containers, this is 500 to 700 bar. This decreases the amount of energy that can be spent on the propulsion by half. Alternatively, as with some rockets, cryogenic liquid hydrogen could be employed.