from iron man's repulsor technology to doc brown's mystery fusion and back to the future
the vision of clean efficient powerful jet thrusters has always maintained strong in
the world of science fiction but what if that vision became reality with plasma
engines the world of science fiction may not be too far away but what are plasma engines
how do they work and can they really allow us to fly further and faster all while emitting
no emissions we thought these questions deserved a deeper dive today on 2-bit davinci
special thanks to anker for sponsoring this video check out the compact anker nano pro for
your various usb charging needs over the last two decades electric vehicle makers like tesla have
completely altered the auto industry changing the conversation around energy efficient technology
this of course begs the question what other industries might benefit from an eco-friendly
overhaul how about air travel according to the us environmental protection agency aircraft had about
12 percent of transport related carbon emissions in the u.s three percent of the nation's total
greenhouse gases globally aviation contributed just over two percent of total emissions in 2018.
considering 2018 saw a global increase of roughly 720 million metric tons of co2
that's over 14 million metric tons from aircraft alone over one tenth of manhattan
with plasma engines that number could be drastically reduced to practically nothing
that's of course if they can get off the ground so what is a plasma engine to help understand
the very sci-fi sounding technology let's first look at regular old gas turbine engines
now jet engines are pretty complicated but here's a quick rundown two common types are turbo jet
engines and turbo fan engines in a turbo jet engine an inlet ingest air compresses it and
mixes it with fuel the mixture then ignites much like a car's internal combustion engine
this high pressure high energy gas gets shut out a turbine that powers the first stage of the inlet
and compressor yeah it's a chicken or the egg situation and that's why jet engines need some
external help to get started the rest of their air shot out the back of the aircraft producing thrust
turbo jets are typically more high performance but less fuel efficient and that's why commercial
airliners use turbo fan engines in a triple fan there's an additional large fan the front
sucking in air but some of that air doesn't actually go into the heart of the engine
instead it's bypassed and just shoots out the back the amount of air that enters the compressor and
combustion chamber determines if the engine is a high bypass or low bypass turbofan engine the more
air that's bypassed the less thrust you'll make but you'll use less fuel which means better fuel
economy below the speed of sound if you'd like us to cover more aircraft topic write to me in the
comment section nothing would make me happier you know what ignites our engines hit that like button
a plasma engine is completely different instead of fuel and compressed air exploding out the
back a plasma engine uses microwave radiation to energize compress and excite gas molecules
such as air or argon to transform electricity into plasma now the word plasma mite conjure up images
of plasma casters from fallout or alien versus predator but plasma is a very real thing like
solids liquids or gases plasma is a normal state of matter it happens as molecules are heated up
and ionized essentially having their charge changed by either gaining or losing electrons
which is why plasma engines are sometimes called ion thrusters the best part is that the thrusters
don't require massive fuel tanks and they produce zero emissions i know i know this sounds like a
bit more fiction than science but we promise these are real and actually they've seen quite a bit of
action nasa has employed plasma thrusters in a number of space vehicles including deep space
1 craft and the dawn asteroid probe space is the ideal environment for plasma engines they consume
less propellant than traditional thrusters and have a much higher specific impulse value
basically how efficiently they create thrust than other rocket technology research shows that plasma
thrusters are able to reach incredibly high speeds over extended acceleration in fact physicist and
ex-astronaut franklin chang diaz claims that some plasma thrusters could reach a maximum velocity
of 34 miles per second and reach mars in as little as 39 days before we get back to the show let me
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but while the vacuum of space has proven ideal for the low propulsion of plasma engines
utilizing their capabilities on earth where we have you know an atmosphere and error has proven a
bit more challenging still a number of researchers have made some pretty big leaps in recent years
leading some to believe that plasma engine technology may find its way to earthbound aviation
in the not so distant future leading the way is a team of researchers from wuhan university in china
led by physicist dr zhao tang tank's prototype uses a compressor that forces air into an
ionization chamber which uses microwaves generated by a one kilowatt 2.45 gigahertz magnetron to
convert this airstream into a plasma jet and gets blasted out of a quartz tube the plasma reaches
temperatures over 1000 degrees celsius about as hot as molten lava this method differs from other
plasma jet thrusters in one key way nasa's dawn space probe for instance uses xenon plasma which
cannot overcome the friction in earth's atmosphere not powerful enough for air transportation
tanks thrusters generate high temperature high pressure plasma using only injected air and
electricity so what does all this sciency stuff amount to well the big breakthrough is that tank's
prototype was able to generate about 10 newtons of thrust at 400 watts using 0.5 liters per second
for the airflow to lift a 1 kilogram steel ball now that might not sound super exciting but
according to tang if his device was scaled up it could produce the corresponding thrusting pressure
of a commercial jet engine another major breakthrough is happening at the technical
university of berlin where burkhant goxil founder and ceo of electrofluid systems and his team have
tested a plasma thruster that can operate on air at a pressure of one atmosphere that's the
earth's atmosphere at sea level this prototype uses a rapid stream of nanosecond long electric
discharge to fire up the propulsion mixture a similar technique is used in pulse detonation
combustion engines making them more efficient than standard fuel powered engines these breakthroughs
mark serious progress in an area of technology that researchers have been chasing for decades
at least in laboratory environments we're seeing plasma thrusters that can at the very least begin
to match the thrust of today's jet engines but before we start seeing jets zipping around like
something out of star trek there are a handful of notable hurdles that researchers need to clear
one major obstacle is scale tank's prototype as we mentioned was able to lift a one kilogram ball
lifting something like an aircraft that's a much bigger challenge goxel's team tested a
mini thruster 80 millimeters long for the same technology to work in a commercial aircraft
they would need about 10 000 of these thrusters of course bigger thrusters would work too but
with large scale comes a series of other issues so even though plasma engines don't need fuel
they still need a power source iron man's repulsors are powered by the ark reactor doc
brown's flying delorean was powered by garbage but sadly once again the world of science doesn't have
quite as many answers as a world of science fiction at least not yet finding lightweight
batteries that can produce the power requirements of these reactors has proven challenging
build batteries too heavy and you create a bit of a paradox more weight means more thrust required
which then needs more power for plasma engines to really take off we're going to need some major
energy breakthroughs if you watch our channel at all you know we're always talking about batteries
and well yeah this is why other power options include solar arrays and even compact fusion
reactors one idea actually involves beaming power to the engine wirelessly using lasers fiber optic
cables and massive balloons this is actually not a joke but none of these technologies are even
close to ready for plasma jet applications still even with these setbacks tang believes we may see
his prototype out in the field in smaller capacities within the next 5 to 10 years
seemingly everything is always 5 to 10 years away but if the underlying energy source is batteries
and we have propeller driven aircraft already you might be asking why do we need plasma jet
engines at all well most propeller aircraft have a max speed of about to 200-300 miles an hour
there are some high performance prop planes out there but hardly the sort of thing you'd use for
commercial aviation i always say if you want some new cleaner technology to replace the incumbent
it has to be better in pretty much every way zero emissions are great but most people aren't gonna
be happy with flights that are half the speed and take twice as long so a six hour flight from new
york to los angeles suddenly becomes 12. i have a four-year-old and a one-year-old and let's say
i'm going to hold out for the plasma jet thing so who knows maybe they'll allow us to fly even
faster than current jets just below the speed of sound or a whole new chapter of supersonic flight
so while we may not see plasmogen engines in the immediate future the need for zero emissions
aircraft will continue to drive breakthroughs like these but let us know what you think about
the plasma jet thrusters is this sci-fi sounding tech too good to be true or are you hopeful that
these breakthroughs will actually lead to real world applications in the near future sound off in
the comments below alright that is a look at the plasma thruster it is a really cool breakthrough
and i'm not gonna lie it is years away but it is a look at what might be possible in the near future
but remember that whatever we come up with it will still need a battery or storage medium maybe
compressed hydrogen batteries we don't know but this is why i always talk about how energy storage
really sets at the center of every breakthrough better laptops better cell phones longer lasting
it's all going to need batteries but this would be pretty awesome and i'm really hoping in my
lifetime i could see a flight on a plasma jet airliner that'd be pretty freaking cool
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love until next time i'm ricky with davinci and just remember the future is gonna be awesome