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[Professor Jonathan Love] Well Stralis has got this really exciting project right they want to um transition the aviation industry from doing jet fuel into a new um energy form so it's um decarbonized sustainable. So they're looking to do a flight from Brisbane to Gladstone is their first flight a hydrogen fuel cell aircraft. We're really happy to be working with Stralis to be doing this project with them and helping them out um been contact with um with Bob Criner and his team over a number of years we've seen how they've developed and we've been talking with them for for a while on their ambitions and how can SEC you to support them and so this project came up which was a uh they needed some additional uh specialty uh to add value to what they're doing and the csro had The RUIC program the Regional University and Industry Collaboration program that had the funding here

[Bob Criner] At Stralis we have big plans we're planning to fly the first hydrogen powered aircraft in the southern hemisphere we've already achieved first propeller Spin and we're now bringing hydrogen into the mix our team has been pushing hard towards this milestone and it wouldn't have been possible without our hydrogen flight alliance members.

[Professor Jonathan Love] So hydrogen becomes the fuel so it's replacing the jet fuel so jet fuel is kerosene uh so we need to replace that so we don't have the CO2 emissions so hydrogen is a cleaner fuel. So the hydrogen in the as a liquid hydrogen form in the tanks on the aircraft will be supplied to a fuel cell the fuel cell converts hydrogen to power that's driving the propellers. This fuel cell is very sensitive to temperature so we need the temperature not to be too hot or too cold if it's too hot it degrades quickly so we need to then replace the fuel cell too frequently so we need the fuel cell to last as long as possible so we need to keep its maximum its high temperature under a certain um temperature value and we don't want it too cold if it's too cold it doesn't produce as much power and then the aircraft isn't going to fly very well. So there's this sweet spot in its temperature just like we as humans like a sweet spot in our temperature so do uh fuel sells so that's what the uh the cooling system and cooling management system that Dr Michael Opolot is designing for Stralis uh is all about it's to control the temperature and its sweet spot. 

[Professor Jonathan Love] So Dr Michael Opolot is one of our fantastic early career researchers he's got great uh knowledge and and background in what we call thermal uh temperature exchange processes so that's chemical engineering uh so he's got the perfect skills for this uh for this project to add that um extra value into what Stralis is doing. As the aviation industry transitions to a new type of of fuel getting away from jet fuel the very short flights will go battery is the most likely uh type of Aviation. The very long flights over to America and Europe uh is likely to go sustainable aviation fuel so that'll be um a biofuel or a waste to a biofuel type uh liquid fuel but there's this mid-range which is perfect for hydrogen so it's too far for batteries and it's a lot more sustainable and and better for the environment being hydrogen because it's so much cleaner.  So this is this year is is a really important year to turn all those um early designs and feasibility studies that have been done over the last few years to been really concrete um deliverable uh outcome so the investment being turned into actual infrastructure and and outcome so for Stralis that means the first flight from Brisbane to Gladstone.

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