On 9 and 10 April 2025, the Department of Energy at Politecnico di Milano hosted the fourth plenary meeting of the European project EFACA – Environmentally Friendly Aviation for All Classes of Aircraft, funded by the Horizon Europe programme. Eleven partners, including universities, research centres and companies from six European countries, attended the meeting to take stock of the latest developments in sustainable aviation.

EFACA focuses on the development of advanced technologies for low-emission propulsion and the design of innovative aircraft capable of integrating cleaner and safer solutions. The project operates on several levels: from the evolution of enabling technologies (such as hybrid turbine-electric engines, fuel cells for use at altitude, stable combustion of liquid hydrogen) to the design of new regional and long-range aircraft powered by hydrogen or sustainable fuels, and the assessment of environmental impacts in terms of emissions and noise.

Politecnico di Milano, with the contribution of Profs. Paolo Chiesa, Fabio Cozzi and Gianluca Valenti, is actively participating in the project with numerical and experimental research activities. In particular, the team has developed models to analyse different architectures of liquid hydrogen-powered engines and conducted studies on the combustion of gaseous hydrogen under conditions representative of aviation. In addition, the Energy Conversion and Storage Laboratory (LabX) is currently working on the installation of the first hydrogen liquefier in Italy, which will enable the creation of a complete line for powering liquid hydrogen aircraft engines: from storage to vaporisation and combustion.