Air Plasma – A Jet Engine Prototype that is Fossil-Fuel Free

Fossil fuels have become the most necessary fuel for most of the transportation. Even though it harms our health and our environment, we haven’t come across its viable alternatives. A team of researchers in the echnological Sciences at Wuhan University developed a prototype jet engine ( that uses air plasma). This could quench the thirst of carbon-neutral air travel. 

The prototype uses the microwave air plasma that thrusts a jet. The prototype launched a one-kilogram steel ball into the air over a 24-millimeter diameter quartz tube. The high-pressure air is converted into a plasma jet by passing through a microwave ionization chamber. The thrusting pressure was proportional to the real jet engine in scale.

We generally see three states of matter namely solid, liquid and gas, but also exist the fourth state of matter ‘Plasma.’ It has charged ions and exist at a higher temperature like on the sun’s surface. 

“The motivation of our work is to help solve the global warming problems owing to humans’ use of fossil fuel combustion engines to power machineries, such as cars and airplanes,” said author Jau Tang, a professor at Wuhan University. “There is no need for fossil fuel with our design, and therefore, there is no carbon emission to cause greenhouse effects and global warming.”

Source: https://futurism.com/the-byte/jet-engine-powered-electricity