The collaboration, which brings together leading organisations and associated research and development capabilities, has been initiated in order to develop printing techniques and know-how with a view to developing a single-step production process for the manufacture of fuel cell stacks. A single-step production process would yield significant gains in cost reduction, size reduction and increased reliability.

Xaar plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is the leading supplier of industrial inkjet printheads, inks and peripheral equipment to commercial printing and industrial manufacturing markets.

Solvay SA is an International Pharmaceutical and Chemicals Group listed on the Euronext Stock Exchange and has annual sales of over ae8.6billion, employs 30,000 people in 50 countries and has spent in excess of ae1.1billion on Research and Development in the past two years.

The collaboration will combine CMR's revolutionary fuel cell architecture with Xaar's leading inkjet printing and Solvay's advanced polymer materials to develop techniques that could lead to the production of inkjet printed, multi-cell fuel cell stacks.

This approach is made possible by CMR's 'mixed reactant flow-through' fuel cell architecture and aims to eliminate the costs associated with the current high precision, low yield multi-stage assembly - comprising a high number of component pieces - found in traditional fuel cells. CMR aims to pioneer advances in high-volume fabrication technology to exploit the tremendous potential offered by mass production of fuel cells capable of delivering the high-power densities required to enable next-generation portable applications for the worldwide consumer electronics industry.

John Halfpenny, CEO, CMR Fuel Cells plc, comments:

"We are delighted to be working with Xaar and Solvay - both leaders in their fields. This collaboration opens up the possibility of realising improvements to the cost effectiveness, size and reliability of our fuel cell stacks - all of which are crucially important to our partners seeking portable power solutions for the consumer electronics industry".