Hydrogen under Control

The aviation sector emits more than 900 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere every year. Reducing CO2 emissions within the sector is therefore crucial to achieving lower global carbon emission targets, in our collective effort to support climate change objectives.

Green hydrogen is the ideal energy storage medium when it comes to avoiding CO2 emissions. Hydrogen has the highest gravimetric energy balance of the fuels and is therefore ideally suited for aviation. Modified piston engines or turbines as well as fuel cells and electric drives can be used as propulsion systems. All of these options require one or more H2 tanks. They are designed either as pressure tanks for up to 800bar or as liquid hydrogen tanks for around -253°C, at about 10bar.

The control of the medium between tank, inlet and consuming device is achieved via a fuel system consisting of valves, safety assemblies, piping and various measuring instruments.

In this context the individual valve types are of particular importance. They must function reliably in extreme temperatures (cryogenics) or pressure ranges (high pressure tanks). Standards for these valves are partly still absent in aviation and will only develop gradually in the future.

TEST-FUCHS has proved to be a reliable and competent partner in terms of development, testing and production of valve technology for many years. Technological innovations are analyzed together with customers in advance, concepts are developed and prototypes are manufactured and tested.

An working example of this type of technology are the TEST-FUCHS cryogenic valves, which operate reliably in extreme temperature ranges of down to -253°C using hydrogen, helium or oxygen. These valves are used in the Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 space program. In addition, TEST-FUCHS also produces hydrogen valves for the automotive development and pre-production field. As one of the largest test equipment manufacturers in the aviation industry TEST-FUCHS offers perfectly adapted test environments and test benches for the required systems. In order to get the appropriate aviation certification, application-oriented test environments are needed, and TEST-FUCHS offers these as well. For more information please consult our website www.test-fuchs.com or contact us by sending an e-mail to sales [at] test-fuchs.com ().

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