Emis­sion-free flight

Exhaust gas measurements during formation flight

Be­hind the DC-8, which is us­ing bio­fu­el, sci­en­tists on board the DLR Fal­con mea­sure the ex­haust gas com­po­si­tion.

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In­no­va­tive en­gine sys­tems are chang­ing air trans­port

In order to address the challenges of environment-friendly and efficient air transport, researchers at the DLR Institute of Propulsion Technology are investigating and developing new engine technologies and propulsion concepts for aviation. Over recent years, aeronautics researchers have increasingly been focusing on new systems, such as electric propulsion systems.

Regional aircraft concept with fuel cells

Since the be­gin­ning of 2020, 45 sci­en­tists from 20 DLR in­sti­tutes have been work­ing to­geth­er on the EX­ACT project (Ex­plo­ration of Elec­tric Air­craft Con­cepts and Tech­nolo­gies) to de­vel­op new tech­nol­o­gy com­po­nents for a cli­mate-friend­ly com­mer­cial air­craft. Here you can see the 70-pas­sen­ger Fu­el Cell Elec­tric Re­gion­al Air­craft 'D70-FC10' con­cept with 10 fu­el cells and propul­sion units in the 'pods' un­der the wings. Hy­dro­gen is sup­plied cen­tral­ly via two hy­dro­gen tanks in the rear of the fuse­lage. The air­craft has a range of just un­der 2000 kilo­me­tres.

The new DLR 'DO 228' D-CEFD research aircraft

The 'DO 228' D-CEFD was over­hauled by Atom­ics AeroTec Sys­tems and one of the con­ven­tion­al en­gines will be re­placed with a 600-kilo­watt elec­tric pow­er­train de­vel­oped by MTU Aero En­gines

DLR Falcon 20E in the exhaust plume of the Airbus A350

DLR Fal­con 20E in the ex­haust plume of the Air­bus A350, which flies on 100 per­cent sus­tain­able fu­el (SAF).

Electric drive enables innovative aircraft concepts

Short and medi­um-haul air­craft con­cept with a hy­brid elec­tric drive.

Electric flight – emission-free, with a new look and quieter

Elec­tric flight com­bines sev­er­al ad­van­tages; it is lo­cal­ly emis­sion-free, qui­eter, and makes com­plete­ly new mo­bil­i­ty op­tions pos­si­ble.

First flight of four-passenger fuel cell aircraft

In Septem­ber 2016, Hy4, the first four-seater pas­sen­ger air­craft pow­ered sole­ly by a fu­el cell sys­tem, em­barked on its first flight from Stuttgart air­port.

The road to climate-neutral aircraft

DLR is con­duct­ing a con­cep­tu­al study to bring an eco­log­i­cal­ly ef­fi­cient medi­um-haul air­craft in­to com­mer­cial flight by 2040.

From air taxis to re­gion­al jets

New companies are emerging in the Silicon Valley region and are already positioning themselves to address the potential market for urban air transport, hoping to help shape its future. In a White Paper published in October 2016, the transport network company Uber identified a number of problem areas in relation to approvals, technology, operations and infrastructure that could be direct obstacles to the introduction of urban air taxis.

Exhaust gas measurements during formation flight

Be­hind the DC-8, which is us­ing bio­fu­el, sci­en­tists on board the DLR Fal­con mea­sure the ex­haust gas com­po­si­tion.

One-third attributed to CO₂ emissions and two-thirds to non-CO₂ ef­fects

Global air traffic accounts for around 3.5 percent of anthropogenic global warming to date. Researchers are analysing all of the areas in which the aviation industry has contributed to climate change since its inception, including carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, and the effect of contrails and contrail cirrus clouds.

Re­duc­ing the car­bon foot­print and cli­mate im­pact of con­trails

From today's perspective, synthetic liquid fuels represent the most realistically viable alternative to the kerosene conventionally used for energy-intensive long-haul flights. For medium-haul routes, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) constitute technology that can be made available relatively quickly. By comparison, alternative propulsion systems based on fuel cells and hydrogen will only become ready for use in the 2030s, and only for regional flights at first.

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