System Analysis and Comparison Between a 2 MW Conventional Liquid Cooling System and a Novel Two-Phase Cooling System for Fuel Cell-Powered Aircraft

dc.contributor.author Gerner, H.J. van
dc.contributor.author Luten, T.
dc.contributor.author Resende, W.
dc.contributor.author Mühlthaler, G.
dc.contributor.author Buntz, M.B.
dc.date.accessioned 2025-02-25T08:20:01Z
dc.date.available 2025-02-25T08:20:01Z
dc.date.issued 2025
dc.description © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
dc.description.abstract Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are the preferred energy source for electric aircraft. However, for aircraft applications, it is of upmost importance to reduce the mass of the fuel cell system. A considerable amount of the total system mass is due to the fuel cell cooling system. In this paper, the analysis of a 2 MW cooling system for fuel cell-powered aircraft is discussed. A detailed comparison is made between a conventional liquid cooling system with ethylene glycol–water (EGW) and a novel two-phase cooling system that uses the evaporation of a liquid to remove waste heat from the fuel cells. For this novel two-phase cooling system, several refrigerants were analyzed, and methanol resulted in the lowest system mass. The mass of a liquid EGW system is 35% higher than for two-phase methanol with accumulator and 2.4 times higher than for two-phase methanol without accumulator. Because of this large mass benefit, a demonstrator for a two-phase methanol cooling system without accumulator with a capacity of 200 kW is currently being built.
dc.description.sponsorship This research was funded from the EU’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 10110149. This paper does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.
dc.identifier.citation van Gerner, H. J., Luten, T., Resende, W., Mühlthaler, G., & Buntz, M.-B. (2025). System Analysis and Comparison Between a 2 MW Conventional Liquid Cooling System and a Novel Two-Phase Cooling System for Fuel Cell-Powered Aircraft. Energies, 18(4), 849. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18040849
dc.identifier.uri https://hdl.handle.net/10921/1706
dc.language.iso en
dc.relation info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/HEU/10110149
dc.rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.title System Analysis and Comparison Between a 2 MW Conventional Liquid Cooling System and a Novel Two-Phase Cooling System for Fuel Cell-Powered Aircraft
dc.type Article
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