An experiment-driven design procedure for optimizing the combination of stages of a dual stage hydrogen compressor with enhanced compression ratio is presented herein. Three different combinations of reactors were used using LaNi5, Ca(0.6)Mm(0.4)Ni(5) and Ca(0.2)Mm(0.8)Ni(5) as hydrogen storage materials. Compression ratios were found to be similar for low supply pressure conditions, which improved significantly for high supply pressure conditions in single stage experiments. A dual stage compressor system with LaNi5 in first stage and Ca(0.2)Mm(0.8)Ni(5) in the second stage was proposed based on single stage results, which was found to be very effective for enhancing compression ratio. Results show that 53% higher compression ratio can be attained by selecting appropriate storage materials for stages, compared to LaNi5 based economic dual stage system. Copyright (C) 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.