Pure lithium battery-powered eVTOLs cannot achieve long flight ranges, and liquid hydrogen is only suitable for large aircraft! The Fudan University team has filled the power system gap in the eVTOL sector by leveraging high-pressure hydrogen storage technology.

Breaking the endurance bottleneck of lithium-powered aircraft and opening up a new path for aviation power with hydrogen energy

In 2012, Dr. Huang Jun, who had more than 10 years of overseas study and work experience, returned to Shanghai from Norway and joined the Department of Mechanics of Fudan University. Before returning to China, he participated in the R&D and commercial implementation of commercial software such as EDEM and LedaFlow. Shortly after returning to China, Huang Jun hoped to replicate the Nordic incubation model and build a model of "commercial orientation, student participation, and industry-university collaboration". However, he soon found that the domestic industrial environment was completely different from the Nordic ecosystem. In Nordic universities, teachers and students have an equal relationship, and students dare to take root in local entrepreneurship. At that time, domestic students generally preferred to go abroad, and research groups were reduced to "preparatory classes for studying abroad". Meanwhile, the academic circle was oriented to paper publication, which made it difficult to implement the idea of incubating technology industries relying on universities.

In 2015, the Department of Mechanics of Fudan University was renamed the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the discipline development tilted towards aviation. Although Dr. Huang Jun received his undergraduate education at Harbin Institute of Technology, he studied power engineering and pressure vessels and had never been involved in the aviation track. To quickly supplement industry knowledge and meet the needs of discipline transformation, he chose the most straightforward way: to join a private aircraft manufacturing enterprise, take graduation design as the starting point, and lead students to practice on the front line for two years. From scratch, he got a full picture of the general aviation industrial chain, complete aircraft R&D, airworthiness, and the real pain points of the industry, laying a foundation for subsequent scientific research and industrial layout. In the following years, affected by family and life rhythm, and with the entrepreneurial environment not yet mature, Huang Jun temporarily put aside his idea of industrial exploration, devoted himself to teaching and educating people, delved into the field of numerical simulation, and steadily engaged in university scientific research work.

The industry inflection point emerged in 2020. At that time, the global hydrogen energy industry saw explosive growth, the commercial exploration of Toyota's hydrogen-powered vehicles was implemented, and the domestic hydrogen energy track entered a blue ocean window period. External capital took the initiative to connect with the team and proposed a cooperation plan to jointly establish a vehicle hydrogen energy system company. A number of Fudan teachers including Huang Jun, who have experience in fuel cells, composite materials, thermal management and other related fields, joined the project by combining technology investment with part of their own capital. However, this cooperation eventually became a lesson in the industry: the funds promised by the partner were not delivered for a long time, and its real demand was only to rely on the team to apply for talent and industrial projects. After recognizing the truth, the team spent more than a year completing the separation from the partner enterprise.

This tortuous cooperation experience became a key turning point for the team's transformation. After reflecting on the lessons learned, the team reached a consensus: core technology and industry accumulation must be firmly grasped by themselves. After multiple rounds of industry research and judgment, the team finally gave up the crowded vehicle hydrogen energy sector and entered the segmented track of aviation hydrogen energy. At that time, the "Dual Carbon" initiative and low-altitude economy had been promoted to national strategic emerging industries. However, most electric aircraft adopted pure lithium power solutions, which had shortcomings such as low energy density, short endurance, and high life cycle cost, and could not meet aviation requirements. The mainstream low-temperature liquid hydrogen technology in the aviation industry is only suitable for large aircraft and is completely not applicable to small aircraft below ton-level. Based on the balance of weight, cost and energy density, high-pressure hydrogen storage has become the only feasible technical path for small hydrogen-powered aircraft. Pressure vessels are exactly the field that Huang Jun has delved into for many years, which also highly matches his long-term research on simulation and industrial structure design.

Behind the track selection is the multiple support from industry connections, industrial trends and university policies. The aircraft manufacturing enterprise where he led undergraduates to do their graduation projects back then received tens of millions of yuan in financing; its former employees have joined emerging eVTOL enterprises one after another; and those students who once did their graduation design in the aircraft factory returned to China to start businesses after further study overseas, and also engaged in the R&D of low-altitude aircraft. The concentrated rise and close communication of the industry acquaintance circle allowed the team to verify the market gap of low-altitude power supporting facilities. After 2022, the upsurge of studying abroad in China cooled down, and students' employment focused more on the prospects of the real industry, so the industrialization talent reserve of university scientific research teams has become increasingly stable. Relying on the discipline platform of Fudan University, Huang Jun took the lead in linking with a number of leading domestic eVTOL complete aircraft enterprises, completed the feasibility demonstration of the aviation hydrogen power project, and officially launched the project R&D and commercial layout. Last year, Huang Jun was selected into the first phase of Fudan F-LAB Scientist Entrepreneurship Camp. At the opening ceremony, President Jin Li personally attended and delivered a speech, clarifying the university's supporting policies to encourage teachers to transform scientific research achievements and empower the industrialization of hard technology, which further strengthened the team's confidence and direction of entrepreneurship.

After repeated communication with complete aircraft manufacturers, the team finally decided that the project adopts a B2B business model, does not engage in complete aircraft R&D, focuses on the R&D, production and sales of hydrogen power systems, and positions itself as a primary core supplier for domestic eVTOL complete aircraft manufacturers. Through the dual profit model of "customized hardware sales + value-added technical services", the team provides customers with complete sets of hydrogen power solutions, and simultaneously outputs technical services such as hydrogen storage simulation design and power adaptation debugging, to quickly enter the low-altitude industrial chain. To avoid uncertain risks such as industrial policies and civil aviation airworthiness, the project has formulated a step-by-step implementation plan: first complete technology iteration in the UAV scenario, then advance into the core eVTOL track, and simultaneously layout dual airworthiness certification channels at home and abroad to reduce the risk of certification failure.

In the early stage of the project, the original plan was to protect the core technology in the form of trade secrets, and give priority to promoting technology implementation and product production. However, in the process of entrusted processing and equipment trial production, the team found that there were already signs of counterfeiting and plagiarism in the track. To build a solid technical barrier and avoid intellectual property risks, the team decisively adjusted its R&D strategy, slowed down the mass production implementation pace, gave up the output of publishable academic papers, and made every effort to promote intellectual property layout. At present, it has held a number of invention patents for hydrogen storage cylinder processing, aviation thermal control, and copyrights of simulation software, building a complete and defensible technical closed-loop system.

At this stage, the team is mainly composed of R&D personnel and has basic scientific research and test conditions. This round plans to raise 5-6 million yuan in financing. The funds will be used for prototype R&D, supply chain construction, on-site scenario testing, airworthiness path docking and team expansion. The cooperation model focuses on precise industrialization docking, with flexible cooperation forms, giving priority to connecting with VC/PE equity investment and industry talents joining with capital. The team only accepts equity investment cooperation with real monetary capital or technology injection, and does not accept cooperation modes without upfront capital investment, such as nominal equity with real debt, policy docking, site affiliation, and talent evaluation.