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

Henk Jan van Gerner (), Tim Luten, William Resende, Georg Mühlthaler and Marcus-Benedict Buntz
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Henk Jan van Gerner: NLR—Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre, 1059 CM Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tim Luten: NLR—Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre, 1059 CM Amsterdam, The Netherlands
William Resende: Airbus Commercial Aircraft, 22335 Hamburg, Germany
Georg Mühlthaler: Airbus Commercial Aircraft, 22335 Hamburg, Germany
Marcus-Benedict Buntz: Aerostack GmbH, 72581 Dettingen, Germany

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-18

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.

Keywords: two-phase; cooling; pump; methanol; fuel cell; glycol (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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