‘They said we were eccentrics’: the UK team developing clean aviation fuel

In the search for sustainable flying, Cranfield University might have found the answer in hydrogen

This row of brick sheds, locked away down overgrown country lanes in Bedfordshire, feels a long way from the glossy boardroom presentations about sustainable aviation. But it was recently the backdrop, in the search for greener flying, to a strange and remarkable scene.

Anyone passing would have wondered why these people were staring at a pipe and whooping and laughing," says Bobby Sethi, associate professor of gas turbine combustion at Cranfield University. But we were almost certainly the only people in the world right then burning anything without producing CO₂."