{"id":9299,"date":"2026-07-09T16:03:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/?p=9299"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:19:07","slug":"airbus-and-mtu-form-joint-venture-to-develop-a-fully-electric-hydrogen-fuel-cell-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/?p=9299","title":{"rendered":"Airbus and MTU form joint venture to develop a fully electric hydrogen fuel cell engine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following a MoU signed a year ago, Airbus and MTU Aero Engines have now agreed to create a joint venture to develop and commercialise a fully electric hydrogen fuel cell engine. The partners say they aim to accelerate technology development, design, testing and certification of a \u201crevolutionary\u201d propulsion system for aviation. The non-binding agreement is subject to standard regulatory approvals and completion of \u201csocial processes\u201d at European and national levels, with operations expected to start in 2027. Last year, MTU said it was making good progress with its Flying Fuel Cell programme and had successfully tested its eMoSys electric motor. Airbus launched its ZEROe project in 2020 to explore the feasibility of two primary hydrogen propulsion technologies: hydrogen combustion and hydrogen fuel cells. Last year it announced it would focus on the latter.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The partners will aim to combine Airbus\u2019 commercial aircraft programme knowledge and fuel cell propulsion and liquid hydrogen expertise with MTU\u2019s multi-year fuel cell technology development and its engine design, integration, validation, certification and maintenance expertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commenting on the joint venture<\/a>, Bruno Fichefeux, Head of Future Programmes at Airbus said: \u201cBy pooling our respective technology and expertise into a dedicated entity, we are establishing a European powerhouse capable of transforming advanced research into industrialised, certifiable electric propulsion systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis new company will help secure strategic sovereignty in the next generation of aviation technologies while strengthening our ability to achieve the long-term ZEROe<\/a> ambition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Airbus says the viability of a fuel cell fully-electric propulsion system was shown in the results of its fuel cell prototype and powertrain testing, as well as research into complementary technology such as cryogenics. Hydrogen fuel cell technology generates electricity through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, producing only water vapour as a byproduct and eliminating harmful inflight emissions of CO2 and NOx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The partners are aiming to be the first to provide a hydrogen-based fuel propulsion system to a commercial aircraft. They believe hydrogen has the potential to play a crucial role in substantially reducing the climate impact of aviation in the long term and \u201ctransforming air transport in a way comparable to the impact of electric vehicles in the automotive sector\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur ambitious goal is to pave the way for a newly developed, safe, reliable and economical propulsion system that will contribute to climate-neutral aviation,\u201d said Dr Stefan Weber, SVP Engineering and Technology at MTU Aero Engines, which is advancing the Flying Fuel Cell<\/a>. \u201cWe want to create a company that covers the entire lifecycle of fuel cell powertrains \u2013 from development and testing through certification to commercialisation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image (MTU): Hydrogen-powered fuel cell engine mounted on an aircraft<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christopher Surgenor<\/strong>
Editor<\/p>\n\n\n

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Following a MoU signed a year ago, Airbus and MTU Aero Engines have now agreed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,76,40,57,19],"tags":[89,336,974],"class_list":["post-9299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electric","category-europe","category-hydrogen","category-latest-news","category-technology","tag-airbus","tag-airbus-zeroe","tag-mtu-aero-engines"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1.jpg",1152,766,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1-300x199.jpg",300,199,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1-768x511.jpg",640,426,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1-1024x681.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1.jpg",1152,766,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1.jpg",1152,766,false],"newsever-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1.jpg",1152,766,false],"newsever-featured":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1-1024x681.jpg",1024,681,true],"newsever-medium":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1-720x475.jpg",720,475,true],"mailchimp":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MTU-hydrogen-powered-fuel-cell-engine-1-560x372.jpg",560,372,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Christopher Surgenor","author_link":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Electric<\/a> Europe<\/a> Hydrogen<\/a> Latest News<\/a> Technology<\/a>","tag_info":"Technology","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9303,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299\/revisions\/9303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}