The burner, featuring revolutionary pressure-gain combustion technology, ran for 303 seconds. This surpasses the previous NASA record of 250 seconds and sets new standards for the use of hydrogen in energy supply, which, unlike natural gas, can be produced using renewable energy. Previously, the researchers had succeeded for the first time in generating electricity with a hydrogen gas turbine without a mechanical compressor. From April 20 to 24, 2026, KIT will present the gas turbine at HANNOVER MESSE.

“An important step toward highly efficient and flexible hydrogen energy”

While tests previously lasted only fractions of a second—otherwise the combustion chambers would melt—the KIT team has now been able to extend the runtime of a new compressorless gas turbine to more than five minutes. “This is an important step toward highly efficient and flexible hydrogen energy for a fossil-free energy system,” says Professor Daniel Banuti, Director of the Institute for Thermal Energy Technology and Safety at KIT. The major advantage of the technology: no additional energy is required to compress the air prior to ignition. “A conventional gas turbine, such as those found in power plants or under the wings of airplanes, uses about 50 percent of its power to compress air to the high pressure required for efficient combustion—power that is then not used for electricity generation,” says Banuti.

Pressure-gain combustion replaces mechanical compression

The compressorless gas turbine is based on pressure-gain combustion. Unlike conventional gas turbines, which require about half of their power for air compression, here detonation waves in the combustion chamber generate the necessary high pressure. These waves arise from fluid-mechanical instability, waves, and vortices in the flow—entirely without mechanical compressors. This saves energy, reduces moving parts, and increases efficiency.

Hydrogen as an ideal energy carrier

The technology is not limited to hydrogen, but hydrogen is particularly well-suited because it reacts extremely quickly and enables stable pressure increases. This opens the way to lighter, more cost-effective, and highly efficient turbines for power generation and, in the future, for aviation as well.

First successful power generation without a compressor

Coupling a turbine to the combustion chamber—and ultimately generating electricity—is an additional technical challenge. “This is very difficult because the extremely fast and intense combustion processes in the combustion chamber make stable energy transfer to the turbine difficult. “We are the first to successfully operate such a turbine and generate electricity in the process,” says Banuti.

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