Estudio de la viabilidad de las energías renovables en la aviación.

Creating cleaner and more environmentally friendly aviation is a common goal in the fight against climate change. The main objective of this work is to study and analyse the main trends that exist today to reduce the environmental impact of aviation, using renewable energies. The project focuses on the two main trends: the increase in the use of electricity in airplanes and the use of alternative fuels, in this case, hydrogen. The first chapter analyses the implementation of More Electric Aircraft (MEA) and their advantages over conventional airplanes in terms of consumption and environmental impact. The different battery systems used in aircraft today and future trends in electric aviation are also discussed. The second chapter studies the viability of hydrogen as an alternative fuel for the propulsion of aircraft, analysing different aspects such as the procurement, storage, combustion and environmental impact. And, finally, a proposal for adapting a conventional aircraft, an Airbus A320, to the use of hydrogen as fuel is presented. In this last chapter, two possible routes for this aircraft are considered and the amounts of fuel required for the design of the new fuel tank are calculated. Furthermore, an estimation is made on the amounts of CO2 that would cease to be expelled into the atmosphere due to the use of hydrogen. It is concluded that fully electric aviation is not currently feasible due to the absence of batteries with the minimum capacities to compete with fossil fuels. However, the current development of more capable battery systems suggests that this goal will be achieved in the near future. Although hydrogen as an alternative fuel presents different difficulties in its implementation and the economic investment is high, the pollution levels are much lower than those of a traditional fuel, such as kerosene. It is a tendency to take into consideration for the medium and long term. For the moment, the viable trend in the short term are MEAs, aircraft that are already in use and with an increasing implementation, more efficient and with a lower consumption than conventional aircraft, which makes them more respectful with the environment. The two trends bring the common goal of reducing the environmental impact of aviation closer to becoming a reality. With the immediate introduction of MEAs in today's aircraft fleets and the progressive introduction of hybrid, fully electric and hydrogen powered aircraft, we are fighting climate change and helping to reduce humanity's environmental impact.Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::7 - Energia Assequible i No ContaminantObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::13 - Acció per al Clim