Chinese scientists say their new plasma drive could one day make green air travel a reality
- Prototype combines intense heat and microwaves to convert pressurised air into plasma capable of producing huge amounts of thrust
- Team from Wuhan University say they were motivated by a desire to solve the global warming problems caused by fossil fuel-powered combustion engines
The idea of aircraft being powered by plasma drives might sound like something from a science fiction film, but a group of Chinese scientists has developed a prototype that might one day make it a reality.
The team, from the Institute of Technological Sciences at Wuhan University, said in a paper published on Tuesday that they had developed a prototype of a plasma jet device capable of lifting a 1kg (2.2lb) steel ball over a 24mm (one inch) diameter quartz tube.
While that might not sound like much, the relative thrust needed to achieve such lift is equivalent to that of a commercial aircraft engine. And because the device uses only electricity and air, a scaled up version might one day provide an emission-free alternative to the fossil-fuel burning engines in use around the world today.
Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter in which atoms are ionised into charged particles. A plasma engine uses electricity to generate plasma and then ejects the ions to produce thrust.
In the Chinese design, pressurised air is injected into a chamber and subjected to ultra high temperatures (over 1,000 degrees Celsius) and microwaves to create an ionised plasma, which is then expelled the create propulsion.
With the success of the prototype, the researchers said that in theory the idea could be scaled up to provide enough power for an aircraft by building a large array of plasma thrusters of a suitable heat- and pressure-resistant material fed by a high-power microwave source.