Getting any concept off the ground requires a strong business plan, but quite often the inventors lack the necessary business skills to take their project successfully to market.

But now more and more of the most promising discoveries are breaking through the start-up barrier and being taken to full-scale commercialisation with the support of experienced management teams that can readily open the right doors to joint venture partners and seed capital.

As such, a wide range of highly promising Australian projects with global potential are in various stages of being commercialised, spanning areas such as biotechnology, information technology, energy storage and automotive combustion.

One project with huge potential is being developed by the company Hydrexia Pty Ltd, which is commercialising a new materials technology for the inexpensive and safe storage of hydrogen as a green fuel alternative for different applications including automotive, stationary and portable fuel-cells.

Hydrexia was launched in 2004 by UniQuest Pty Ltd, a university technology transfer group operating under the University of Queensland, and last year was named winner of the university's Enterprize business plan competition.

Hydrexia is currently seeking to raise about $2.5 million from Australian venture capital players to pursue its technology.

"Everywhere you need a store of hydrogen to fuel those fuel cells is where Hydrexia comes into it," says Jeffrey Ng, who has been appointed the company's chief executive so Hydrexia can maximise its business opportunities. "We've developed a range of alloys based on magnesium that actually stores hydrogen within it.

"We've got a proof of concept on the alloy itself, and then what we're doing now is we're moving towards putting those alloys into a storage system." Hydrexia's hydrogen storage system looks like a standard gas canister on the outside but has the company's magnesium alloy inside. "That storage system is essentially what would be of interest to all the different application developers," Mr Ng says.