In the logic of zero-emission air transport, the Holy Grail is the electric aircraft. To be honest, we don’t see it happening tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow, even if a hybrid near-future is very possible. But when you see how in one fell swoop, in no time at all, the electric car has reached levels of performance and autonomy after an eternity of trial and error and generations of unfinished products, you can always expect a nice surprise.

The problem with the electric plane is its power for the critical phases (take-off) and the weight of the batteries.

A problem that could be solved by a new approach that would give the same performance as a current turbo-jet using only air and electricity: the plasma engine.

Ironically, this advance comes from a laboratory in Wuhan…

Goal: 0% greenhouse gas emissions

As explained by Futura Science:

“In concrete terms, the Chinese team’s prototype compresses air at very high pressure. This air flows through a microwave ionisation chamber and is transformed into plasma. For the moment, the model designed by the laboratory can lift a 1 kg steel ball with its 2.4 cm diameter quartz nozzle. If the prototype is scaled up to an airliner, the thrust is comparable to that of a real turbojet engine, and this is the next development that the researchers are working on.”

All this was documented in a paper published on the American Institute of Physics Advances website.

In video it is less impressive.

The plasma engine: a purely experimental but not new concept

It is clear that this is only a small-scale laboratory experiment and there is no telling when a reactor-scale prototype will be completed. And by the time we see it implemented in an aircraft, some time may have passed, provided that it works.

But what gives us hope is that the plasma reactor concept is already working! It is already used to propel satellites but so far does not work in the Earth’s atmosphere. If this hurdle is overcome (which seems to be the case at least from an experimental point of view), the good news is that the rest of the technology is known and mastered. And by French businesses (among others) which is even better.

Photo : turbojet engine by testing via Shutterstock

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