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Scientists Develop Plasma Thruster That Could One Day Power Planes
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Chinese scientists said they developed a plasma-thruster prototype that might one day lessen the aviation industry’s reliance on fossil fuel, bringing air travel free of carbon emissions a step closer to reality.
The device, built by a team from the Institute of Technological Sciences at Wuhan University, uses only air and electricity to generate propulsion with an efficiency comparable to a commercial jet engine under laboratory conditions. The team used the technology to lift a 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) steel ball over a quartz tube with a diameter of 24 millimeters (1 inch), it said in a paper published on Tuesday.