{"id":446520,"date":"2023-05-25T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=446520"},"modified":"2023-05-25T06:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T04:30:00","slug":"delft-students-sail-with-flying-hydrogen-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/delft-students-sail-with-flying-hydrogen-boat\/","title":{"rendered":"Delft students sail with flying hydrogen boat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A flying boat powered by hydrogen sounds exciting, and it is. Hydro Motion<\/a>, a TU Delft student team, unveiled its brand-new craft this month. The students chose a flying one. Not only is this very impressive, but it is also very efficient. At a speed of more than 25 kilometers per hour, the boat partially emerges from the water. “The resistance in the air is much lower than the resistance in the water. Therefore, a flying boat sails more efficiently than a model lying in the water,” explains Isabelle de Bruin, team leader of the TU Delft Hydro Motion Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insightful innovators<\/h2>

This story is part of the \u201cInsightful Innovators\u201d series, an initiative of the 4TU.Federation and Innovation Origins. Here you can read the stories of enterprising students at four Dutch technical universities and their ambition to make the world a little nicer. They are a driving force behind innovation in the Netherlands.

Read the orther stories in this series here.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Efficiency is key<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Efficiency is very important because hydrogen as a fuel for boats is still in its infancy. The students’ boat runs on green hydrogen. That means it is produced with sustainable electricity from, for example, wind or sun. The hydrogen gas is contained (under high pressure) in a tank on board the boat. The hydrogen is converted there into electricity to drive the engine. The boat emits only water during a cruise. If hydrogen is not made with renewable but with fossil energy, there are still (indirectly) greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hydrogen indispensable in the energy transition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The students think hydrogen will be an important element in making the maritime industry more sustainable. “Especially for long distances, a hydrogen boat is much more suitable than a battery-powered one,” De Bruijn argues. This is because the energy density of hydrogen is higher than that of batteries. “For a boat like the one we have made now, it saves half the weight.” Batteries are considerably heavier than a hydrogen tank, but a hydrogen tank, in turn, is often larger than batteries. “It’s important to get the pros and cons right. The best choice for sustainable fuel also depends on the vessel, distance, time, and other factors.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to team manager De Bruijn, a lot of development is still needed for boats to run on hydrogen on a large scale. This involves, for example, optimizing the tanks on board a boat but also the infrastructure around hydrogen. “For cars, it is already possible to refuel hydrogen in some places. For boats, it’s still a lot more complicated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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