Weight is the enemy of all things aerospace – indeed, hydrogen's superior energy storage per weight is what makes it such an attractive alternative to lithium batteries in the aviation world. We've written before about HyPoint's turbo air-cooled fuel cell technology, but its key differentiator in the aviation market is its enormous power density compared with traditional fuel cells. For its high power output, it's extremely lightweight.

Now, it seems HyPoint has found a similarly-minded partner that's making similar claims on the fuel storage side. Tennessee company Gloyer-Taylor Laboratories (GTL) has been working for many years now on developing ultra-lightweight cryogenic tanks made from graphite fiber composites, among other materials.

GTL claims it's built and tested several cryogenic tanks demonstrating an enormous 75 percent mass reduction as compared with "state-of-the-art aerospace cryotanks (metal or composite)." The company says they've tested leak-tight, even through several cryo-thermal pressure cycles, and that these tanks are at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 6+, where TRL 6 represents a technology that's been verified at a beta prototype level in an operational environment.

This kind of weight reduction makes an enormous difference when you're dealing with a fuel like liquid hydrogen, which weighs so little in its own right. To put this in context, ZeroAvia's Val Miftakhov told us in 2020 that for a typical compressed-gas hydrogen tank, the typical mass fraction (how much the fuel contributes to the weight of a full tank) was only 10-11 percent. Every kilogram of hydrogen, in other words, needs about 9 kg of tank hauling it about.