Although it accounts for only 4.2% of the total global warming potential, the concern today is that aviation generated C02 is projected to grow to approximately 5.7% by 2050. Aviation emissions are growing faster than any other sector and they risk undermining the progress achieved through emission cuts in other areas of the economy. Rapidly emerging hydrogen and fuel cell based technologies could be developed for future replacement of on-board electrical systems in larger ‘more-electric’ or ‘all-electric’ aircrafts. Primary advantages of deploying these technologies are low emissions and low noise (important features for commuter airplanes which takeoff and land in urban areas). SOFC systems could result advantageous for some aeronautical applications due to their capability of accepting hydrocarbons and high energy-density fuels. Moreover they are suitable for operating in CHP configurations, recovering heat from the high-temperature exhaust gases which could be used to supply thermal loads reducing therefore the electric power requested by the aircraft.
The ENFICA-FC (Environmentally Friendly Inter City Aircraft powered by Fuel Cells) project led by Politecnico di Torino in the Aeronautics and Space priority of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) carries out a feasibility study on all-electric inter-city aircraft (regional jets, air taxi, small commuters) to provide a preliminary definition of new forms of aircraft systems that can be obtained by fuel cell technologies (Auxiliary Power Unit, Primary electrical generation supply, Emergency electrical power supply, Landing gear, De-icing system, etc).
The feasibility analysis is described, and the points to be optimized are analysed in detail.