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KechtmutAlTunichtgut t1_iy930g6 wrote

Reply to comment by Hoosierguy2 in Rolls-Royce successfully tests hydrogen-powered jet engine | Britain's Rolls-Royce said it has successfully run an aircraft engine on hydrogen, a world aviation first that marks a major step towards proving the gas could be key to decarbonising air travel. by yourSAS

I always thought jet engines would eat every combustible liquid or gas you give em. Another problem but the storage would be that hydrogen is manyfold worse than CO/2 for the climate when it escapes, and that is the mature problem with it, it's atomic weight is just to light and it crawls out of almost everything.

Edit: Sry but the stuff with the to light of an atomic weight to crawl out of contaiers was helium I guess, but put the production of hydrogen into an industrial scale it could still get messy.

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Hoosierguy2 t1_iy94qc0 wrote

They did test hydrogen with a standard j-57. The 304 was a highly optimized configuration. It had a massive heat exchanger after the cumbustors and it looked more like a steam turbine inside. Lots of tiny bladed compressor stages

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big_trike t1_iya1zn5 wrote

Combusting hydrogen that starts in the liquid state is tricky. At 1 atmosphere, hydrogen evaporates into a gas at 33K, but oxygen freezes at 54K. On top of that, combustion occurs at much higher pressures in a jet engine. So, while it's definitely possible to make it work, you need an engine design that significantly pre-heats the incoming fuel. The space shuttle main engines do this by scavenging heat from the exhaust and are a marvel of engineering.

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