The University of Queensland (UQ) will lead a A$3.9 million (US$3.4 million) Australia-China research partnership targeting the production of alternative liquid fuels, hydrogen, and energy storage for hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.

UQ Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Greenfield said the alliance’s broad objectives were:

• Cost-effective technologies for alternative liquid fuels as well as technologies from solar and clean coal processes that will enable hydrogen production; and

• Materials for storing electricity and hydrogen for the new generation of hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles of the future.

All Queensland researchers are associated with the UQ-based Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials and are led by Professor Max Lu, a two-time ARC Federation Fellow. The Chinese experts are from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Institute of Metals Research.