Swinburne’s Victorian Hydrogen Hub (VH2) and Aerostructures Innovation Research Hub (AIR Hub) are developing enhanced hydrogen storage tanks for aerospace. Working with CSIRO and the Institut für Flugzeugbau (IFB, ‘Institute for Aircraft Design’) at the University of Stuttgart in Germany, the project could make a real impact on the carbon footprint of the aerospace industry.
Hydrogen Storage Technologies Research Fellow, Madeline Van Dongen, is bringing VH2 and AIR Hub together to “provide a chemical perspective on projects in both hubs”. Madeline’s role in this global effort is modelling the chemical aspects of hydrogen storage in new materials using density functional theory and related methods.
“Essentially, we’re creating a metal-organic framework-based hydrogen storage tank that can be used for aviation, which is really exciting,” she says.
Aircraft currently rely on jet fuel, which releases millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere every year. Hydrogen can provide nearly three times more energy than traditional fuels for the same weight, and only produces water