Part of their secret, they say, is in the catalyst that they use to grow their carbon nanofibre.

ECONOMIST: Space-age soot

Last year, she reported that her group had synthesised a nanofibre material capable of storing 65% of its own weight of hydrogen.

ECONOMIST: Space-age soot

The result, they claim in a paper that will appear this month in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, is a nanofibre material with an extremely high ratio of surface-area to volume.

ECONOMIST: Space-age soot