One of the limitations to the widespread use of hydrogen as an energy carrier is its storage in a safe and compact form. Herein, recent developments in effective high-capacity hydrogen storage materials are reviewed, with a special emphasis on light compounds, including those based on organic porous structures, boron, nitrogen, and aluminum. These elements and their related compounds hold the promise of high, reversible, and practical hydrogen storage capacity for mobile applications, including vehicles and portable power equipment, but also for the large scale and distributed storage of energy for stationary applications. Current understanding of the fundamental principles that govern the interaction of hydrogen with these light compounds is summarized, as well as basic strategies to meet practical targets of hydrogen uptake and release. The limitation of these strategies and current understanding is also discussed and new directions proposed.

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The "art" of material design for hydrogen storage relies on mastering divergent requirements. This review aims to summarise recent strategies to design better hydride materials toward the storage and use of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier.

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Hydrogen is often considered as a technology for the future owing to the limitations of current hydrogen storage materials in powering fuel cell vehicles. However, with the first hydrogen vehicles on the road and the need for better energy storage systems to back-up the increasing penetration of renewables, hydrogen based technologies will undoubtedly play an ever-increasing role in future energy schemes. To support the uptake of hydrogen, the challenge is to design better materials than This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 2 the ones currently available. This means materials capable of reversible hydrogen uptake and release close to the ambient and with a storage capacity approaching 10 wt%. To date, materials with high hydrogen capacity are known but the lack of approaches to fully control the properties of these materials toward the targets for practical application still remains the drawback. In this context, the approach of particle size reduction or nanosizing has recently emerged as a potential mean to gain full control over the properties of high capacity hydride materials. This review aims to summarise current understanding toward the synthesis of nanomaterials and the potential of current knowledge to aid with the synthesis of nanosized hydrides with properties that could ultimately enable hydrogen storage at the ambient.