SYLPHAERO

Technology

Unlike the competition, we do not try to electrify the aircraft's propulsion by replacing jet engines with electromagnetic motors rotating a propeller.

Instead, we electrify jet engines.

• Our design is a world first. Instead of burning fuel to heat the air inside of the engine, we heat the air at temperatures above 2000°C with electricity only, by generating a plasma.
• This new type of electric plasma-based jet engine allows electric aircraft to reach supersonic and even hypersonic speeds, which was previously impossible. Existing electromagnetic motors driving propellers or fans are limited to ~1000 km/h, and the current world record is only 623 km/h.
• Because the storage capacity of batteries is quite limited today, we want our electric plasma-based jet engines to reach an overall efficiency at least as high as today's electromagnetic propulsion standards.
• Our engines do not release CO2 in the atmosphere. They only create very small amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx), because Nitrogen & Oxygen are both naturally present in the atmosphere and react together at high temperatures.