jats:pThis paper reports the effect of high-pressure torsion (HPT) on the first hydrogenation of LaNi5. We found that, for loose powder, reduction of particle size has an effect of increasing the incubation time and decreasing the hydrogen capacity. A higher amount of HPT turns only marginally reduce the incubation time but has no effect on hydrogen capacity. In all cases, the first dehydrogenation and subsequent hydrogenation have the same kinetics, irrespective of the particle size or number of HPT turns. Therefore, for LaNi5, HPT has a beneficial effect only for the first hydrogenation.</jats:p>