Safe Hydrogen storage at room temperature

“The new material absorbs the hydrogen into its structure and literally bristles with molecules of the gas. At the flick of a switch it rejects the hydrogen, allowing us to turn the supply of the gas on and off as we wish.

“The fact that we discovered the material by chance is a fantastic advertisement for the benefits of curiosity driven research.

“In principle it should be possible to produce ready amounts of hydrogen using sea water and solar cells, giving the next generation of vehicles an inexhaustible supply of environmentally-friendly fuel.

“In fact other research in Bath’s Department of Chemistry is at the forefront of the solar cell research, new battery technologies and new fuel cell technologies which could help unlock what many people are calling the hydrogen economy.

The research was initially funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council.

The researchers are now working on the first stages of the prototype, which involves printing the material onto a glass substrate. A further £500,000 grant to the Department of Chemistry has enabled Weller along with other researchers in the Department to buy two mass spectrometers which allows them to examine the molecular structure of the material.