As climate change and global warming are getting severe each day, scientists are looking for a way to deal with the issue. And the latest possible answer to all their questions could be the air plasma jet engine.
Emissions-free vehicles and other electronics have been on the minds of scientists around the world. And recently, scientists in China are working on emissions-free flights with air plasma jet engine. And how are these important, you might ask?
These jets can take a flight around the world without fossil fuel emissions. Let’s dive in to know more about these.
Plasma thrusters
Developing air plasma jet engine- Infomance
Engineers of the Wuhan University of China have come up with this prototype which relies on thrusters powered by compressed air and electricity. This will help in creating flights without carbon emissions.
But the most important and basic question that comes here is about Plasma thrusters. Let’s understand this first. What are plasma thrusters?
Plasma is the fourth state of matter that consists of an aggregate of charged ions which causes a surge in energy when activated. And plasma thrusters are mostly used in space for propulsion.
But what’s different here is that these plasma thrusters will be working in the atmosphere, not in space. But researchers of the Wuhan University have demonstrated their unique prototype which uses microwave air plasma for jet propulsion.
This thruster will create plasma mid-air. It will compress air into high pressure and then use the microwave to charge it.
A way to green aviation
Developing air plasma jet engine- Infomance
This new developments in air plasma jet engines are very important because it opens a way to pollution-free flights.
Flights are one of the fastest-growing sources of global warming due to the large-amount emissions of greenhouse gases.
Author Jau Tang, a professor at Wuhan University explains the motivation behind this work.
“The motivation of our work is to help solve the global warming problems owing to humans’ use of fossil fuel combustion engines to power machinery, such as cars and aeroplanes,” he said.
Dr Tang further added, “There is no need for fossil fuel with our design, and therefore, there is no carbon emission to cause greenhouse effects and global warming.”
The potential
This new prototype of air plasma jet engine has a lot of potentials and could actually make our dreams of green aviation come true.
This can jet device, if successful, can be scaled up to a full-sized jet.
Dr Tang said, “Our results demonstrated that such a jet engine based on microwave air plasma can be a potentially viable alternative to the conventional fossil fuel jet engine.”
So let’s hope this proves to be a success because we really do need some cleaner and greener earth.
Until next time!
