In order to monitor the hydrogenation/dehydrogenation characteristics of the bee TiCr1.1V0.9 compound, two composites samples containing 20 wt% of LaNi5 were synthesized by melting and by mechanical alloying. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveals that the melted material crystallizes with two bee phases after a complete dissolution of the hexagonal LaNi5, Besides, the mechanical alloying (MA) procedure does not yield any modification of composition of the mixed phases. Therefore, a line broadening due to the particle size refinement is observed. For the melted alloy, the pressure-composition measurements carried out at 303 K reveal a decrease of both the maximum hydrogen capacity and the reversible hydrogen amount. Conversely after a MA treatment, hydrogenation/dehydrogenation properties are enhanced, even if a reduction of the maximum hydrogen capacity is pointed out. In both cases of alloying, the equilibrium plateau pressure is reduced reference to the starting bee TiCr1.1V0.9 compound. (C) 2003 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.