A new technique for producing hydrogen has been developed, a discovery that could widen the scope of hydrogen as an alternative fuel for use in transport and other areas.

Italian scientists at the TASC INFM-CNR laboratory have found a way of producing hydrogen from cerium oxide.

Cerium oxide, a powder used in glass polishing and ceramics, can both store and release oxygen, a quality that makes it suitable for chemical reactions that produce hydrogen.

Researcher Friedrich Esch explained: "Ceria-based materials are oxygen buffers, materials that allow [one] to efficiently store or release oxygen, thus favouring a high catalytic activity and inducing a set of chemical reactions which would otherwise require higher pressures and temperatures."

The results were obtained using tunnelling microscopy, allowing images of the surface of a material with atomic resolution to be seen.

Numerical modelling, which describes electronic and atomic structure through parallel computing, was also used.

The growth of the hydrogen economy is likely to see a rise in the demand for platinum, with the precious metal used in fuel cells.