Universal Hydrogen is making hydrogen-powered commercial flight a near-term reality.

Last year, JetBlue was the first airline to invest in Universal Hydrogen under its investment and innovation arm, JetBlue Technology Ventures. Fast-forward a year later, and the test aircraft from Universal Hydrogen is ready to debut and will soon be coming to the US for test flights.

Simple Flying will be at the Farnborough Airshow next week. For all the latest news from the show, click here.

Universal Hydrogen is considered one of the leading innovators in the fight to decarbonize the global aviation industry through the adoption of hydrogen as fuel. The test aircraft is the newly-liveried ATR 72-600 aircraft that Universal Hydrogen has been using to develop the hydrogen retrofit kit. It was also used to develop the hydrogen module operational handling experiments.

The ATR 72-600 remains the market's most popular in-production regional turboprop. When coupled with the hydrogen module operational handling technology, it eliminates the need for costly and lengthy airport infrastructure upgrades. Powered by lightweight hydrogen, the ATR will have unit economics that are equivalent to or even better than those of conventional jet fuel-powered aircraft, allowing for airlines to fly further than the regional aircraft is typically capable of.

One key challenge regarding using hydrogen as fuel was designing a safe storage area within the current design of aircraft. The success of a hydrogen project largely depends on designing and building lightweight tanks that won't add to the weight of the aircraft, but still allow enough liquid hydrogen to be transported and standards for passenger safety to be met.

To tackle this challenge for the ATR 72-600, Universal Hydrogen used aluminum to construct the liquid hydrogen tanks in the retrofit kits, turning the regional turboprop into hybrid-electric planes. Although metal is undoubtedly heavier than composite materials, Mark Cousin, chief technology officer at Universal Hydrogen, said:

“With a metallic-type design, we’re really not inventing anything new. We don't have any particular problems with the materials for a metallic cryogenic tank."

Still, the California startup is not entirely trashing the idea of composite materials and will be using such materials to build tanks for gaseous hydrogen as, in that state, the hydrogen need not be kept at the cryogenic temperatures required for its liquid state. As such, building a composite tank for gaseous hydrogen made it easier for Universal Hydrogen to store and transport, and could also power collections of fuel cells or electric motors for the ATR 72-600.

Compared to pure electric energy, the range of even a regional turboprop like the ATR 72-600 is still vastly limited by the battery's power density. Hydrogen fuel cells, however, can extend the range with a lightweight solution.

The aviation industry and hydrogen fuel used to have quite the unfortunate relationship, as the tragic Hindenburg disaster would prove. While the adoption of hydrogen still has some regulatory issues to overcome, given the advancements from companies such as Universal Hydrogen, the adoption could soon become a reality.

Journalist - Charlotte is currently pursuing a full-time undergraduate degree majoring in Aviation Business Administration and minoring in Air Traffic Management. Charlotte previously wrote for AirlineGeeks. Based in Singapore.