Brown/Klein/HHO
Weird stuff brewing on the energy transformation front. A new gas, sometimes referred to as Brown's, Klein, or HHO gas is being considered as an alternate form of energy storage. The hype concerns its use in automobiles, as a better hydrogen fuel cell. The reality that it may be useful in welding, a notoriously difficult process for certain types of metals, i.e. consider aluminum.
A confidential information PDF white paper came in the email from a co-worker and I took a crack at trying to understand what's going on. In a separate post, I will try to outline some of the personalities involved, but for now here are some snippets.
First, this is not as new as the mass media implies.
More recently, there has been considerable research in the separation of water into a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases. These studies were initiated by Yull Brown in 1977 via equipment generally referred to as electrolyzers and the resulting gas is known as "Brown gas" (see patents [2]).
The following confirms that the author is walking a tight-wire in establishing a new material form without resorting to unconventional and non-traditional interpretations.
The main scope of this paper is to report, apparently for the first
time, new clusters of hydrogen and oxygen atoms contained in the HHO gas, which clusters appear to escape the traditional valence interpretation and constitute one of the novelties of the HHO gas over the Brown gas.
The efficiency computations are bunk; with a real problem in the formulations (note the scf/W below; scf/Kwh is the only thing that would make sense here). This could only be a typo, but sloppiness does not portend well in these kinds of white papers.
The first remarkable feature is the efficiency E of the electrolyzer for the production of the gas, here simply defined as the ratio between the volume of HHO gas produced and the number of Watts needed for its production. In fact, the electrolyzer rapidly converts water into 55 standard cubic feet (scf) of HHO gas at 35 pounds per square inch (psi) via the use of 5 Kwh, resulting in the remarkable efficiency of 55/5,000 = 0.001 scf/W (sic), namely, an efficiency that is at least of the order of ten times the corresponding efficiency of conventional water evaporation, thus permitting low production costs.
This next one is bad because hydrogen fuel cells do not have a net effect on atomic depletion or creation. This smacks of a marketing move to set it apart from perhaps higher efficiency forms.
A second important feature is that the HHO gas does not require oxygen for combustion since the gas contains in its interior all oxygen needed for that scope, as it is also the case for the Brown gas. By recalling that other fuels (including hydrogen) require atmospheric oxygen for their combustion, thus causing a serious environmental problem known as oxygen depletion, the capability to combust without any oxygen depletion (jointly with its low production cost) render the gas particularly important on environmental grounds.
The word anomalous is used quite a bit. And notice a new name to the mix, Santilli, with a catchy moniker, magnecules, presuming a contraction of magnetic molecules.
With the understanding that any expectation of a complete understanding of the chemical composition of the HHO gas in this first paper is not realistic, and any lack of release of anomalous new measurements due to lack of their final understanding is not scientific, we here submit the working hypothesis for further future studies according to which the chemical composition of the HHO gas is a novel realization of the new species of Santilli magnecules[3].
Melting something does not prove anything, even if it is impressive!
The first experimental evidence supporting the magnecular structure of the HHO gas is its capability of instantly melting tungsten and bricks.
And finally the qualifications, meant as a CYA.
The reader should be aware of serious difficulties in detecting the new species of magnecules with instruments conceived, developed and tested for the different chemical species of molecules. To avoid not infrequent "experimental beliefs" caused by insufficient or
inapplicable analytic instruments, extreme scientific caution is
suggested for any substance with suspected magnecular structure before releasing serious experimental results or personal views (see Ref. [3] for details).
More later.
posted by @whut at August 26, 2004
56 Comments:
All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident
It also goes through the revisionist stage.
Hey, why don't you go edit some Wiki, it may be more productive.
Having watched Klein's work, your words are somewhat less than meeningful.
Amazing Also was watching Stanley Meyers car drive about with nothing but a similar invention.
wake up.
"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
efficiency... look like a typo, KW doesn't work either it would work out to 11 scf/KW, the correct number given the data would be .011 scf/W
Nothing was mentioned about atomic depletion and fuel cells, he said hydrogen. BMW has developed a prototype that burns compressed hydrogen. Commercial hydrogen is generally produced from hydrocarbons not through electrolysis of water, to my knowledge there isn't a whole lot of oxygen in hydrocarbons.
I took a quick look at Santilli's CV.
While he may very well be a great scientist - he was never nominated for the Nobel Prize for Physics as claimed. There is no reference to ever having a paper published by a recognized scientific journal.
It is supposed to be a "complete summary" but go see for yourself here and you'll see that it is quite a poor collection of information.
This is not exactly a professional CV. There are no issue/page references to his papers and the terms used such as, "highly qualified Publishing Houses" and "distinguished academic houses" with no real clue as to what is being referred to.
Excuse me for thinking that this may be made up. I guess I can't say for sure but it all seems quite unprofessional and purposely obscure.
Sorry for the harsh comments against Dr. Santilli - but the first post attacking the Mobjectivist seemed so defensive I swore it must be Mr. Santilli's brother or something. I figured if we're going to have a little post war here we might as well make it two sided.
Cheers all!
All ridiculous exaggerations and hoopla pass through three stages:
1. First, FOX news reports it.
2. Second, everyone gets all excited about it.
3. Third, it slowly disappears over years as nothing ever comes of it.
Seriously, just because something is ridiculed does not mean it is going to be later vindicated and become self-eveident. The vast majority of weird ideas that get ridiculed ARE false or exaggerated. Only a RARE FEW are groundbreaking and destined to change our paradigm.
There is no reference to ever having a paper published by a recognized scientific journal.
I agree that the cv is unconventional, and it is clear from a google search that Santilli is a controversial figure. But this statement is ridiculous. Have you ever heard of Springer-Verlag? Apparently not. Saying that their publications are not "recognized scientific journals" is a bit like saying the Ocean is not made of water.
Full disclosure: I had never heard of Dr. Santilli until reading your blog.
Hahaha... FOX News. Sure, they could try to investigate things before they report on them... but that would require putting together a quality program.
Oh, and Santilli... I checked out the CV too. It's not that he wasn't published by a "recognized scientific journal" - it's that they try to be elusive in actually referencing which one's. Sure he's published his own stuff, but not in other mediums that require the necessary scientific peer review that keeps things honest (as they can be).
- Who's the grandmaster?
It is worth mentioning that the paper to which I believe you refer does have "uncorrected proof" written all ove it. It is not yet submitted... I believe it is still in the peer review stage.
The link to the paper, btw is http://hytechapps.com/presentation/linked%20files/Hydro%20Tech/user%20added/Santilli,%20International%20Journal.pdf
The data is compelling that something is, indeed, different about this gas, as it clearly varies from what would be expected were it purely hydrogen and oxygen, as one would expect from normal hydrolysis.
whether or not this difference is due to a "magnecular" bond is up for debate at this point. Also, it would be worth comparing the effects of Brown's gas applied in the same way and whether that behaved similarly to this gas (namely in thermal reactivity).
I do wish we could get some OBJECTIVE thoughts on this matter. I'm concerned that this looks like a "cold fusion" scam, however the arguments that are presented here are amateur at best! Why would you idiots come out and pronounce your "opinions" and not present a thread of evidence to back it?!? PRO or CON!
1. There is NO SUCH thing as "nominated for the Nobel Prize" scientist! Anyone can send a suggestion to the Nobel, but they never announce who they are considering. Only the winners are known.
2. If this is a fraud, has anyone tested the product hytechapps.com is selling? I would imagine this would prove their technology (and their HHO claims)pretty easily. How could this be "BUNK" if there is a product that can prove or disprove the claims?
3. From everything I can find, there is nothing to disprove their HHOS tests.
PLEASE, someone with the SCIENTIFIC knowledge to look at this with an objective view, let us know if this could be true! I'm tired of funding ARABs with my gas money, and I'm sick to death of all these PRO Bush zealots, claiming another "GREEN" conspiracy from the leftist media! You morons need the WAKE UP!
How about you? Oh wait a minute - it is probably hard to come by someone with enough scientific knowledge, time, and interest in this to post on a blog debating unsupported claims.
To answer:
1. Santilli's group claims he was nominated several times for the prize. They probably nominated him.
2. Anyone in Florida want to drive over and test this shit out? Give us the scoop?
3. If you're sick to death of funding the Arabs through oil, then stop driving your car or get these guys to convert yours to a true water breather! Better yet, ride a bike.
Who are you calling idiots? Objective thought? Please, all you offered was an opinion as well. Hypocrite. I think you'll even find that it is hard for scientists to be completely objective. They have a thing called an hypothesis which states their best guess of the results - the outcome that they expect from the experiment that they designed. Somewhere along the line they had to make a call on which method they were going to use, how they were going to use it, what factors they should consider etc etc...
Maybe you should stop calling people names and refine your leftist rhetoric. You would be more effective if you presented coherent arguments instead of telling other people they need to wake up. If you're going to make such a statement it usually means that you have something enlightening to offer - if you do I would be more than happy to hear it because I would agree that we all need a little awakening instead of standing by as our world crumbles.
- I think the GrandMaster is Big Blue
It appears to me that in the above mentioned "efficiency" equation of 55/5,000=0.001scf/W that the previously mentioned 5Kwh is being represented as 5,000 in the equation which would then be correctly labeled in Watts, not kiloWatts. Granted that the "hour" is missing from the resulting efficiency resolve, which might be generally assumed; and 0.0011 has been rounded off to 0.001 (with possibly some thought of significant digits).
Am I just too thick to see the obvious blunder here?
Allthough Aquygen claims their gas is different (non-hydrocarbon), I thought I'd add that the process of turning water into a burnable fuel was achieved much earlier: AquaFuel™ is fully based on the Hilliary Eldridge patent US 603,058 "Electrical Retort" granted on April 26, 1898.
There is a website illustrating the process whereby they took a plastic beverage bottle and inserted two carbon rods through the side of it and sealed them back up with silicone. One carbon rod was rounded on its end and the other was flat.
Kinda' like this:
======)|========
The beverage container is then half filled with water to submerge the rods and vented at the top (via a small hole in the lid). A wire is attached to each rod with one side in series with a resistor and electricity is applied. The gas produced is capable of being ignited. You can view it here:
http://jlnlabs.imars.com/bingofuel/html/aquagen.htm
Brown's Gas contains 36 different allotropes of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. HHO is highly likely to be one of these allotropes because it is proported to be produced by traditional low voltage high amperage electrolysis.
The fact of the matter is that it will always take more energy to change the form of water into a burnable gas of hydrogen than will be yielded from electrolysis . The new invention will only at best change are energy needs for transportation from oil dependency to coal, hydro, solar, thermal, or wind power. Coal will be the most likely choice due to the abundance throughout the world
It seems that Santilli has one seemingly important accomplishment under his belt, MagneGas (www.magnegas.com) which converts various liquid wastes into a clean burning, cost effective fuel. Cars that can run on Natural Gas can also run on his MagneGas without any modifications. Forget all the argument over what scientific journals he's published in... it does seem he may have something here.
I ran into this whole "HHO" stuff from watching a video on ebaumsworld. Which should tell you how accurate this crap is. I'm hard pressed to believe this amazing super gas that defies convention isn't being praised throughout the world.
Looks like more junk that fuel companies inject in society to delute our minds from real concerns. Like using real alternitive fuels like solar or wind power which are PROVEN effective. These methods for energy could be used to make real clean fuel like hyrdrogen. But it won't be cost effective until we run out of oil now will it?
Don't get your hopes up for this super gas.
I find this gas to be fascinating, but I wonder if it is not really just a hoax. They only mention a generator that produces the gas on demand. Why is this gas not being bottled and sold as a alternative to cxygen/acetyline?
Can't we all just get along?
I really do hope the HHO can replace oil dependency instead of used as an additive.
!It is Clean!
Our planet needs a good cleanup.
To answer the post above about the alternative to oxygen/acetylene, the company actually sells their machine for torch welding and heating of materials. You can buy one for about $5000 USD and it produces the gas on demand. I believe the company has donated a couple of machines to some trade/technical colleges.
"been nominated for the Nobel Prize on more than one occasion"
By whom? You can nominate yourself for this prize if you wish to do so.
visit www.quackwatch.org and school yourself in not being a gullible tool.
Working for a company that recently purchased a unit of the new HHO gas, I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of the technique for cutting and welding. No other technique for welding or cutting is as efficient or heats as quickly as I've seen the HHO gas perform. I personally don't care about politics, I just care that it works and HHO gas can provide a completely new look at chemistry beyond even the quantum mechanical view of electrons and bonding and provide greater sources of energy than ever thought possible.
If you run electric current through water, you electrolyze the water into its constituent gases, hydrogen and oxygen. You get twice as much H2 and O2, for I hope obvious reasons.
HHO gas is just a mixture of H2 and O2, and it is nothing new. You don't need to invoke quantum mechnaics to explain its behavior. H2 burns in the presence of O2 -- that's simple chemistry. So don't let the spiffy websites, scientific mumbo jumbo and media coverage fool you.
Water may be plentiful, but producing HHO requires electricity, which ultimately requires in most communities the burning of fossil fuels. HHO-powered cars may be ecologically feasible if you have hydroelectric or nuclear power plants providing the "juice." Then you would just need to worry about the cars blowing up.
This is so odd...
so... Some one figured out how to seperate water in such a way that when you ignite it... it implodes, and turns back to water.
Ok, im curious, how is this done? Has anyone spent the time to do the hands on work and see if this does even ANYTHING remotely like the folks who are doing this is true?
I mean... honestly... what a wild concept that would be, you dump water into this container, you use some power to force it into a gas. And then this gas because of the type of metal its seperated in, just so happens to work like a fuel type of gas except that it IMPLODES in the process of returning to its natural state? ...
Does this mean I need to clean the plates if its unclean water? i.e. there is some calcium in it from the tap? Do I need to boil it to try and remove some of the impurities before I chuck it in the seperate into the gas bucket? ... will the Oil industry have me put to silence if this works?
I doubt very much a multi trillion dollar industry like Oil, would let anything remotely take cash out of there pocket, reguardless what the rest of the world thinks. That would tick off every country and company having anything to do with Oil.
So if this works, and I dont care if its not 100% efficient, it works from water right? So I am thinking hook up the alternator to this thing, maybe grab a generator to connect up to the engine block and run it from the drive belt, and then pipe in this gas from the water seperator. Then I dont have to spent over 400$ a month in GAS? I like this idea alot. Then again, those who were getting the multi trillion dollars from the consumers, are going to have a fit. And when Big oil has a fit, they can start wars, whats to stop them from... stopping me? MY safety perhaps?
And I dont care what crack pot smoked this up at what ever camp fire they were around, if it remotely works.... then ... well... whats stopping people from doing this? Obviously this isnt the first time this has been thought about right? What stopped all the previous folks hard work, back in the 60'ies, and then again in the 70'ies, and what happened in the 80'ies, and then were rolled into the 90'ies, here we are in the new millenium. And we still dont have this as a widely used product system. Other than in china, and South Korea and India.
So.. all those years, all those possible production hours that could of been spent fabricating and perfecting these systems. What was the problem? What went wrong? It sounds like it would work right?
I wish some one would just spend the time and effort to get it either working, and prove some uses for this, and debunk what it cant and can do. Or just drop the subject all together.
Either case, hope this proves useful.
I came across this blog, and having a chemical background, I hope I can fullfill your desires (even if it is two years behind posting date)
My chemical background constitutes of 2nd year Molecular Life Sciences which shares it's first year with Chemistry.
To start debunking:
If it really was this big, I'd expect at least one article in any renowned scientific journal, most likely saying it's crap.
Anyone can do a search on PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/) which is an near-complete index of recognized (nature, science, JACS, etc.) scientific journals kept up to date by the National Library of Medicine (USA) (Note that it expands to more topics than just health, you could find any article on quantum mechanics or simple physics with equal likelyhood).
A quick search to Dr Santilli gave out: only unrelated authors with the same name, on different topics
A quick search to "brown's gas" and "Klein's gas": 0 results
"hho": only result to "human heme oxygenase" (an enzyme abriviated hho)
Magnecular: 0 results
So, in established scientific journals, there is no mention of "brown's gas", "magnecular structures", "hho" or the relevant dr. Santilli
I also attempted to verify several of the references in dr Santilli's CV,
none matched, or were untraceble unless you order a book with the conference-reports for the relevant attended conferences
The websites:
try the invaluable WHOIS tools, pick your favourite and try
www.i-b-r.com (the site with the curriculum):
Registrant Name:Hadronic Press, Inc.
Registrant Email:domain@magnegas.com
www.hadronicpress.com (where many articles of dr. Santilli are supposed to be published:
Registrant: Hadronic Press, Inc.
Registrant email: domain@magnegas.com
www.magnegas.com (the company that sells the hho generators):
Registrant: Hadronic Press, Inc.
Registrant email: domain@magnegas.com
I find it peculiar that every relevant domain is registered with the same email adres. If hadronic press were a supporter of magnegas, ok, possible, but then why is hadronic press registered by magnegas? it's a looped registration, they registered eachother!
However, honesty forces me to admit I can't (yet?) expose hadronic press as a scam, it's to well referenced for that (try google on "hadronic press" or it's ISSN number: 0882-5394, issn = isbn for magazines)
Interesting side-note: the wikipedia Brown's gas article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown's_gas) is categorized for deletion and under "pseudo science"
Curriculum and publications:
try and compare Santilli's curriculum with, for example that of the top group at my own university (Radboud University Nijmegen: http://www.orgchem.science.ru.nl/research/nolte.htm)
The Nolte group is in the international upper quarters of chemistry.
What I want you to look at is the publications list: it numbers little over 400, but note that this is the publication list of the entire _group_ over a period of 30 years (that's dozens of people), according to his CV, santilli has made 246 publications _by himself_
And finally: the chemical theory behind it:
"High energy compounds" in general means that the compounds are unstable, or "unhappy" in layman's terms. It is unstable because it can lose a lot of a energy in going to an other form (nature always wants lower energy; a ball rolls to the lowest point of a bowl).
H2O2 is an example of a relatively "unhappy" compound: it react with mostly anything (e.g. colour molecules in your hair) to more "happy compounds" ("lower energy compounds" in more chemical terms).
H2O (water) is the most stable ("happy") configuration of 2 hydrogen-atoms plus 1 oxygen atom. "upgrading" it into something that can burn hard means making it "unhappy", which equals adding energy (compare it with lifting the ball to the top of the bowl in the previous example, lifting makes you tired = costs energy).
HHO is different from H2O, in that normal water is HOH (the oxygen in the middle, as opposed to on the edge as in HHO).
However, this is extremely unstable, as you have the middle hydrogen bonded to TWO atoms, while hydrogen doesn't do that, and the side oxygen is only bonded to ONE atom, leaving it extremely reactive. If the HHO configuration existed at all, it would spontaneously rearange to HOH within nanoseconds.
the "cold flame" theory:
Note that they never demonstrate the fact that the flame is cold by holding their fingers in it. They just touch the tip. The tip can stay cool easily if you start the combustion beyond the tip. If you look at the close-up shots of the tip, you can see there's three holes in it, and the glowing streams start a little outside the tip. This means that the fuels, whatever they are, don't start burning until they left the tip, and that easily explains why you can touch the tip without getting burnt. This is NOT HHO specific, any torch can do that (please someone with a welding background confirm this)
Yull Brown:
a quick search gave up mostly pages describing him as a fraud, con-artist and general scammer, using semi-scientific stories to pry funding from gullible persons, and then dissappearing without a trace but with the money.
Well, I'm done debunking, (and tired of it too).
Hope this clears it up for anyone who finds this post via-via (like I did)
(I feel I wasted quite some time debunking and replying to this two year old storie, but I don't care, it's the holidays anyways :P)
Regards, Jules
I don't know too much about chemisty given my Mechanical Engineering background, but I read through the paper on this HHO gas just out of pure curiousity and childlike excitement about something new and potentially cheaper than dinosaur juice (yes... I realize it's not really barney and dino). I thought about it quite a bit and questioned why it hasn't exploded into a crazed vehicular conversion hysteria.
Despite my lack, and the apparent lack of everyone else here, of the necessary knowledge to prove or disprove, I want to present a couple of questions that don't require vast knowledge to answer. (Note that these questions are only useful if their claims and demonstrations are legit, which I would assume they are.)
1. If adding their electrolysis unit to a vehicle increases milage, then you cannot argue that it isn't beneficial. The increased milage comes only at the cost of the unit, water, and electricity generated by the engine and gasoline. If the electricity required to produce the HHO is supplied by the gas that powers the engine that turns the alternator that powers the electrolyser and yet your vehicle can go further on a given amount of gas, then you have come out ahead.
Summary: Same amount of gas but more miles by adding water and nothing else (the electricity, again, comes from the gasoline). How do argue with that?
2. If it can melt tungsten and brick, then regardless of their marketing and FOX scientific reporting you have to acknowledge that you have a unique gas with vast amounts of available energy or at least some sort of "catalyst" to cause the materials to react with themselves and melt away. I don't know of other fuels capable of performing equally with the HHO.
I'll be the first to proclaim my ignorance, but I do trust my general intuition. And, despite the fact that I am still somewhat skeptical, my first question above seems "bulletproof" as a claim for consumer benefit, despite the science behind it.
Just to cover my self proclaimed nice ass, EVERYTHING I wrote depends on...
"Note that these questions are only useful if their claims and demonstrations are legit"
Brilliant comment! I dig that voodoo that you do so well.
For Gods sake people. If this is true, then it violates thermodynamics. It's taking water, using some energy to convert it into something else ( perfectly feasible ), and then converting it back to water, releasing more energy than you put in. It's rubbish.
Basic physics tells you that. Still, as someone who reads scientific papers for a living, it is at least amusing ;)
*Wholeheartedly supports the above post*
Yes! a good summary of all that needs to be said. Thermodynamics has withstood at least a century of hard-handed attempts at debunking. It's been right since the steam-engine, and no amount of fictious "HHO" gas is going to change that!
Annonymous,
You haven't missed a blunder. The blog poster is just an incompetent who does not understand simple mathematics. the stated /W rather than /Kw is absolutely correct. Let that put the rest of these presented arguments in perspective.
You don't just assume dimensional units that aren't there. This is sloppy crap, which folks like you tolerate. Slop and making money off of the gullible are different sides of the same coin. People that don't ask questions are the ones taken for a ride. The anonymous blog commenter is an incompetent.
A premier clarification of HHO technology is available on the following website.
http://www.waterfuelconverters.com
I think a lot of people are missing the important points about this product. It is, after all, primarily an improved welding gas.
If there is anyone who has actual experience with Aquagen(tm), or has a chemistry background, could you answer the following for me:
1. What is the cost of using Aquagen compared to standard Oxy/Acetylene torches.
2. Is the HHO compound stable, does it require high pressure, is it explosive?
3. Are there energy benefits between this process, and just extracting H2 from water to use in a hydrogen cell?
And info would be appreciated
This is not a scam.It is possible that this a very economical system. If the claim was that no additional physical matter or energy was ever added to the system you nay sayers would be correct. Yes energy cannot be created or destroyed but who ever said that you are getting more energy out of this then you are putting in? Some water is being CONSUMED here. There is a tremendous potential energy there. Energy is created by the CONSUMPTION of electrolized water. You never get as much H2O back as you start with as it is converted to heat and motion. How much energy is consumed by the fractional distillation,(refinement) distribution,and environmental maintenance, (attemps to clean the atmospheric toxins) of crude oil?
I have used the HHO torches for about five years now, I've been on numerous safety teams and frequently consulted with OSHA about creating and maintaining new saftey guidelines when dealing with HHO. HHO has proven itself in the steel industry for about a decade now and shows great promise for the automotive industry as well.
The theory behind HHO is basic 2nd grade science. Water(H2O) contains Hydrogen (a fuel source) and Oxygen (supports burning). Add an electricial current to the water to break it down electrochemically to produce the hydrogen and oxygen gas mix, apply an igniton source, and burn baby burn...
The efficiency of turning water into HHO gas is and always will be debated for all time, it depends on the type of water used (distilled, tap, and what other elements are in the water you are converting). Most skeptics will say it takes more electricity to convert the water to HHO than the energy released by the HHO gas because of the laws of physics states energy cannot be created or destroyed. I say Congratulations on passing 4th grade science, but that law doesn't apply in this situation because we are talking about Potential and Kinetic energy here, so you just failed your physics final.
As far as energy being created, you're not creating any energy, because the Potential Energy (Pe) already exists in the Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms found in the water. Kinetic energy (Ke) is the energy released by burning that same Hydrogen and Oxygen that was in the water. This is where you run into the arguement energy cannot be created or destroyed. Kinetic energy cannot be greater than Potential Energy. An object cannot give off more energy than it can store, Period. However, Kinetic energy is and always will be greater than the catalyist (ignition source) used to start the conversion from Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy. Think of it as rolling a ball down a hill, it doesn't take much to get it started, but once it starts rolling down the hill, it requires more energy to stop it. This is where most people get confused and often argue in circles.
To break it down in layman's terms: Water already contains your fuel source, just like crude oil contains mosly carbon and hydrogen. This is known as Potential Energy. When there's a crude oil fire, you're not creating the energy that's causing the fire. The fire is the energy being given off as a result of the Potential Energy being converted into Kinetic energy. So, Kinetic Energy + Fire = Potential Energy. Both sides of the formula are equal.
On the automotive side, you have to keep in mind that some of the electricity used to convert the water can be produced again as the vehicle is being driven (alternator). And what little water vapor is left after the burning of HHO can then be condensed and converted again. So the answer to how efficient this whole thing is can be determined by asking one simple question: How much unused gasoline does your car put back into the tank to be used again as you drive it?
The problem that exists in the automotive industry is producing HHO gas to keep up with the demand of the engine as you speed up and slow down. Since the RPMs are not constant, it is hard to anticipate the fuel needed. But, since HHO is a GAS you are burning in the engine instead of the LIQUID gasoline, the burning efficiency of HHO is much higher simply because you increased the surface area. Gases burn more efficiently than liquids. Fuel injectors tried this to a point by spraying the gasoline into the engine before it was burned, and it helped fuel economy, a little. However gasoline is still in its liquid form when burned, thus it burns unevenly and a lot of it is still unused and is given off as exhaust.
Because HHO is in a gas form it burns more evenly, efficiently, not to mention cleaner, resulting in less fuel required to produce the same amount of energy. You don't need to produce a gallon of HHO gas to take the place of a gallon of gasoline. That's simply ridiculous since you are comparing apples to oranges.
To answer a lot of questions, Yes it is really cheap to create HHO gas compared to the cost of gasoline and Acetylene needed to do the same job. The cost to produce enough HHO gas that would have the same energy as a gallon of gasoline is about 8.5¢
HHO is stable and some of it needs to be stored, but not all of it, and the pressure is FAR less than Oxy/Acetylene tanks. It still needs to be treated as a highly explosive gas. Think of it as your standard Acetylene torch at about a hundredth of the fuel cost.
Hydrogen cells are DIFFERENT, they require VERY high pressure (PSI in the hundreds), they can crack and leak and explode. With HHO most of what's needed can be created on demand resulting in much lower storage pressures than fuel cells or acetylene tanks.
People: Water is "burned" hydrogen. Aquagen is going to "unburn" it and produce a gas to "burn" again with no energy loss??? Get real!!
The gas may be good for many applications such as welding, but not as a fuel. At best, it could be considered to be the equivalent to a battery. You put energy in to produce the gas, then you burn the gas to produce some fraction of that energy. This is true for any attempt to use hydrogen as a fuel. You always have a net loss of energy in the total process.
I am not a scientist. I am an MRI technologist and farmer. I have done 8 years of school full and part time in sciences, finance, sociology, psychology, radiology, nuclear magnetic resonance and management. I have read all the material concerned with Magnegas and HHO gas. HHO gas's only use in my opinion is for cutting metal or making existing fossil fuels burn more complete in the combustion engine.
Magnegas on the other hand is something that is totally different. Everyone views it as something to disprove. That is the last way to look at it. The Magnegas reactor is a way to clean up liquid waste on this planet at the expense of electricity which is its downfall. There is a solution to that...Windmill. There are lots of windmills producing power on this planet.
The Magnegas reactor turns what we humans and animals produce every single day into clean organic liquid fertilizer and a burnable fuel. Unless someone can tell me how the human race is going to stop shitting and pissing respect Dr. Santilli for his work. Our waste we produce and what animals produce is a problem for the people of this world...unless you people aspire to clean toilets or work for sewage companies, maybe you people should do a day of work in the sewer to stop and think about Dr. Santilli's work for a moment.
If I could wake up everyday have a shower, take a crap, go for a leak, wash my dishes and clothes and change all the oil in my equipment and turn that waste into fertilizer and fuel all I would need is a windmill to power it and my house and I would be self sufficient. I also live in a province where hydro electric power is over abundant and cheap so I could go that way too. Not to mention the reactor produces a large amount of heat which could be used for pyrolysis of switch grass, poplar trees, and wood chips. Their final product after pyrolysis is charcoal which is excellent for soil rebuilding. (see Terra Preta soils for further explanation).
The energy crunch that the world is feeling brings on innovation and that is good, but we are trying to do the impossible...which is make energy from nothing or grow our energy. We have lots of waste and we are wasting it everyday. We should start using it because it is being produced every single day by 6 billion people and who knows how many animals.
Look farther than disproving or discrediting. Look at synergies.
Disprove and then move on. It's the only way.
Run the numbers in the finance department. Operating city sewage treatment plant or operating a Magnegas reactor...taking in all costs and profits (building costs, maintenance, labor, land, selling of product, everything). Disprove Magnegas...it should keep you busy for a while. You might never move on!!!
Hey Chirs,
Learn to spell your name and then move on.
This appears incredible on the surface but can be easily explained with mainstream physics. If you want to learn more I would recommend the following paper:
Comments on “A new gaseous and combustible form of water,”
by R.M. Santilli
(Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 2006: 31(9), 1113–1128)
J.M. Calo∗
Calo appears to do a great job of blowing Santilli out of the water, pun intended.
I guess some people are just too smart for their own good. No need to worry about criticizing and discussing the subject. Japanese water cars, General Motors watercars, Korean Water Generators, Chinese browns gas colleges, home heating and Australian water motorcycles are all a reality, already. Too late for criticism, or general de bunking, everyones there already. Just google away, and get up to speed. Thing is, the brains are already done with it, its just production and marketing now.
marketing, see above
Is it true that an internal combustion engine requires an explosion to drive the piston down? Is it also true that when HHO is ignited it causes an IMPLOSION? Wouldn't that cause the piston to stop?
implosion, explosion - I don't know, but everyone seems to be arguing different angles and none seem to be focusing on the whole chain of events:
1. I don't see a claim anywhere that says that HHO is creating energy from nothing, so arguing about it is pointless. Even if that was the case, arguing about it is still pointless.
2. Considering that it is currently being used as a viable welding/cutting fuel demonstrates that it has energy potential beyond gasoline, regardless of the thermodynamics, physics, and chemistry involved. If you care to argue this point, please begin with designing a feasible welding/cutting rig that uses gasoline as a direct fuel, as opposed to powering an internal combustion-driven generator.
My points:
1. As an alternative (or additive) fuel, it costs only as much to produce as the electricity consumed in creating it (this is part of the increase in potential energy, by the way)
2. A motor vehicle creates electricity by virtue of an alternator, some of which can be tapped to electrolyze the water (forgive me if I've used the wrong term). This is in effect a conversion, or energy trade: a slight parasitic power drain on the engine creating the electricity, which is in turn converted into HHO. This HHO is then added to the air being inducted into the engine where it is combusted, converting the energy back to the original mechanical motion. A long but simple conversion, and the only energy losses are the normal mechanical inefficiencies of a piston engine which loose power to heat/friction, the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbon fuel, and additional energy losses in the electrolytic cell as other unneeded/unusable compounds are created. Please note that alternators have an electrical output potential greater than the needs of the vehicle. and the additional power needed to generate the HHO is relatively negligible.
3. Understanding the above and accepting it, we move on the the part that no one seems to be getting: An engine only needs x amount of fuel to produce f(x) power. If you replace part of that hydrocarbon fuel with a higher energy fuel that burns more completely, you decrease the amount of hydrocarbon fuel needed and therefore reduce the hydrocarbon emissions and increase the hydrocarbon fuel mileage. NOTE: Replacing hydrocarbon fuel with any fuel that burns more completely has the additional effect of increasing the overall efficiency of the engine.
4. The increase in fuel mileage is not magic. You are not seeing a reduction in the fuel energy needed to power the vehicle, you are instead seeing a reduction in the amount of hydrocarbon fuel needed to power the vehicle. The rest of the power is supplied by the HHO.
5. The claimed miracle here is not in creating free power or new voodoo science, but that with a relatively simple gizmo created from ordinary science, we can create a series of energy substitution/conversions of which the net effect is the reduction of hydrocarbon fuel needed to power a given engine and the attendant reduction of hydrocarbon emissions.
That said, you also have to take into account the following as it applies to HHO and free (unbonded) hydrogen:
"Here are a few common…
ENERGY DENSITY COMPARISONS
Gasoline 9000 Wh/l 13,500 Wh/Kg
LNG 7216 Wh/l 12,100 Wh/Kg
Propane 6600 Wh/l 13,900 Wh/Kg
Ethanol 6100 WH/l 7,850 Wh/Kg
Liquid H2 2600 Wh/l 39,000* Wh/Kg
150 Bar H2 405 WH/l 39,000* Wh/Kg
Lithium 250 Wh/l 350 Wh/Kg
Flywheel 210 Wh/l 120 Wh/Kg
Liquid N2 65 Wh/l 55 Wh/Kg
Lead Acid 40 Wh/l 25 Wh/Kg
Compr Air 17 Wh/l 34 Wh/Kg
STP H2 2.7 Wh/l 39,000* Wh/Kg
*=uncontained
Please note that it does not matter in the least whether
you are "for" or "against" gasoline or whether you like it or
hate it. Gasoline (and diesel and hydrocarbon equivalents)
are and likely will remain the de-factor standards of energy
density comparisons at 9000 watthours per liter and 13,500
watthours per kilogram. Gasoline also currently defines
acceptable standards of safety and convenience for most
personal transport.
Serious competitors must approach parity.
...[battery section omitted for clarity]...
Elemental Hydrogen gives us a curious mix of energy
density values. At first glance, its 39,000 wh/kg seem to be an outstanding advantage. And it is for deep space apps.
At a closer look, this figure is virtually meaningless for
most terrestrial apps. Why? First, because a 3X increase in
gasoline gravimetric energy density would not end up all
that big of a deal for most end users. Possibly saving 26
pounds or so of average weight in an average vehicle.
But much more important, you do have to consider the
contained weight of an energy delivery system. A gas tank
adds relatively little weight to the gasoline it contains. But
it is enormously unlikely you would be able to contain an
equivalent 13 pounds of hydrogen in any 26 pound tank.
Thus, the real-world contained energy density of hydrogen
by weight is typically a lot worse than gasoline.
On the volumetric side, the hydrogen news is worse than
all bad. STP hydrogen gas is laughingly pathetic. 2.7 watt
hours per liter recoverable as electricity, or 3.3 watt hours
per liter as heat. After compression and containment losses,
ultra cold cryogenic liquid hydrogen has around one-fifth
the energy density of gasoline.
Curiously, there is more hydrogen in one gallon of
gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen.
This happens because gasoline is denser by more than its
hydrogen mole fraction."
and more importantly:
Electrolysis Fantasies
Water is an ash. By chemical energetics, it is thus about
the worst place to look for a bulk hydrogen source.
At first glance, it seems easy enough to use electrolysis
to split water into its oxygen and hydrogen components.
Just apply any low dc current for bubble, bubble, toil and
trouble. Full details first appeared by Michael Faraday over
a century ago. And are easily found today in Britannica’s
Great Books #45.
Electrolysis is certainly useful for cooling generators or
petrochemical refining or precision low energy torches or
lifting research balloons or making fat pretty but deadly.
But nearly all of these use unstored hydrogen-on-demand
and do value their hydrogen much higher than by its
meager energy content.
As we’ve seen, retail electricity is worth about ten cents
per kilowatt hour. Lower exergy gasoline is worth three
cents per kilowatt hour. Your value of raw unprocessed
hydrogen is not well established, but we do know it will
certainly be a lot less than gasoline today. Because it has
not yet impacted gasoline in any significant way. I feel 0.8
cents per raw hydrogen kilowatt hour can be a reasonable
ballpark estimate.
In a typical situation, electrolysis takes two or more
kilowatt hours of electricity worth ten cents each and
converts them into one or fewer kilowatt hours of
hydrogen worth less than a penny each.
And that is before any fully burdened cost accounting,
amortization, storage or processing. Thus…
Electrolysis for bulk hydrogen energy is pretty
much the same as 1:1 converting US dollars into
Mexican Pesos.
At its very best, electrolysis introduces a staggering loss
of exergy that dramatically reduces the quantity and value
of transformed kilowatt hours of energy. Electrolysis is
thus wildly unsuitable when driven from high value
electrical sources such as retail grid electricity or any
small scale photovoltaics.
If you have electricity, sell the electricity, buy some
methane, and reform the methane. It is a lot cheaper and
throws away a lot less exergy.
This is remarkably comparable to our earlier electrical
resistance heat example. Where your best solution involves
converting a few higher value kilowatt hours into more
lower value ones. Rather than fewer.
Even if you have a renewable and sustainable source of
ultra low cost electricity, electrolysis can still easily convert
it back down into a net energy sink.
Individuals making their own "homebrew" hydrogen by
electrolysis face other rude surprises. For openers, some to
much of the produced "gas" may end up water vapor from
dielectric heating. Safety issues are largely unappreciated
and easily lead to Darwin Awards.
But the really big gotcha is trying to use stainless steel
rather than costly platinized platinum electrodes. Because
of the hydrogen overvoltage of iron found in most any
electrochem textbook, and because of the dead-wrong low
energy passivated surface, stainless slashes your possible
efficiency by one-half or greater.
The emerging alternates to electrolysis? Direct solar to
hydrogen has been demonstrated by several researchers"
(both excerpted from http://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf)
which smacks us with the question "does it really work?" Someone with more money than I have needs to take a new car (an engine system running at factory specs) and run mileage and emissions test on it. Then install the an HHO system and run the exact same test in the exact same manner with the exact same equipment and post the findings on the 'net.
well, a little more digging revealed this:
"
There's some lively discussion going on in the newsgroups
over a new "trucker's hydrogen injection system" based on
electrolysis via an alternator. To me, the numbers simply
do not add up. Not by a country mile. Time will tell how much
of this is a scam, how much is the placebo effect, and how much
is real.
First, there definitely is credible peer reveiwed research that
shows that a modest (typically 5%) hydrogen injection can
improve combustion to significantly raise fuel economy. It
is also possible that lower hydrogen injection levels can reduce
carbon and other deposits. The latter has yet to be convincingly
shown.
Two key questions are whether any new mechanical load needed
to produce the hydrogen is greater or less than the benefits
derived; and whether the fully burdened cost amortization will
ever let the system pay for itself.
Few people realize how ludicrously inefficient a conventional
alternator driven electrolysizer would be. The odds are utterly
overwhelming that there is no way in hell that the benefits
could remotely approach the input loading penalty.
First, the fanbelt itself may be limited to the three the five
horsepower range. Its efficiency is probably around 97
percent, caused by flexing and air turbulence. Car alternators
are a lot less efficient than most people suspect, typically
being in the 70 percent range. While the largest losses are in
the rectifier diodes, the wider air gap, less-than-optimal regulator,
cheaper magnetic materials, and field losses all make car
alternator efficiency a secondary consideration. A typical 100 amp
12 volt car alternator is also only a 1-1/2 horsepower device.
For decent efficiency, you cannot simply connect an electrolysizer
to the output of an alternator. Because the alternator is a somewhat
constant voltage device, and an efficient electrolysizer demands a
carefully controlled current. The fancy switchmode electronics
required to do this would probably end up in the 80 percent efficiency
range. Analog control circuits or direct connection, of course, would be
much worse.
While an electrolysizer can theoretically be fairly efficient (neglecting
the staggering exergy hit, of course), most will operate well into their
exothermic range for decent gas volumes.
This introduces at least another 70 percent efficiency drop. Further,
most add-on manufacturers might tend to cheat and use stainless
steel or nickel rather than the platinized platinum required for decent
efficiency. this can add up to another 60 percent efficiency hit due to the
hydrogen overvoltages involved. Details in any electrochem book.
Finally, the engine itself is probably only 35 percent efficient at
converting fuel to shaft horsepower. Let's see. If we start with
1000 watts at the crankshaft, we get 970 watts at the alternator
input and 679 watts at the alternator output. And 543 watts at
the switchmode regulator. And 380 watts for the exothermic
drop. The stainless overvoltage puts us down to 228 watts. And
the engine efficiency finally delivers a mere 87 watts of mechanical
power!
The dilemma is this: The amount of hydrogen producible with one
fan belt and an unmodified alternator seems uselessly low and is in the
"homeopathic dose" range. While significant hydrogen production
seems to me to demand multiple fanbelts, custom heavier and much
more efficient alternators, and other complex modifications.
While other means of hydrogen injection (such as exhaust gas
reformation or a refillable on-board tank) might eventually be
shown to be useful, I strongly feel that the insane efficiency losses
in onboard alternator electrolysis absolutely guarantee that this
flat out ain't gonna happen. And that's BEFORE amortization.
In short, both the engineering economics and the thermodynamics
suck. More in our Electrolysis and Energy Fundamentals tutorials.
"
excerpted from http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu05.asp
The man has multiple degrees in various types of engineering and seems to know what he's about.
So much for HHO
Nice slippery slope ya got there. A lot of assumptions go into the "87 watt efficiency" argument, but it's all dicking around with numbers in the end; you haven't actually tested this, have you?
in the end that's my main point. LOTS of speculation, name calling, and finger pointing - and all followed up with zero tests by an objective third party.
Lester,
Thanks for the rational input into this discussion.
I'm reading a few manuals from these water for gas products and errors are everywhere, even though the product may have value. I'm still trying to find objective tests online.
And water is certainly the ash that results from burning hydrogen. There is no available energy in water. Only after you inject a LOT of energy into water to tear it apart do you get the H2 and O2 back in a form that can be burned.
The question I have concerns the amount of energy added to the gasoline by the HHO. In the videos and manuals it looks like a flame could run off the bubbles that is equivalent to a few candles. By your own calculations, 87 watts doesn't provide much energy to the car. So if there is an improvement in mpg then it has to come from a catalytic effect rather than a bulk energy addition.
Or in other words, maybe these products do work by making the gasoline burn cleaner and more completely, thereby releasing more energy from the gasoline. If so, then the amount of energy in the HHO is not important. It would be the improved performance of the gasoline that actually drives the car further down the road.
I still have not seen any objective tests that I can trust. I may have to build one of these things just to see if there is a net mpg gain. If I can trust my own tests. Definitely have to measure everything before I install the system.
This is a very interesting concept. Sure, it takes the battery to create the energy to break down the water, but the battery is charged by the alternator. I guess the measure of success would be does the addition of Brown's gas to the combustion mixture make for higher gas mileage?
I read a great article titled, "HHO or HHype" at http://economicefficiency.blogspot.com/2008/07/hho-or-hhype.html
While it doesn't pick a winner, it does cover a lot of ground.
uh...hho allows the normal lamda of gas and air, 14.7 to 1 to be changed to say 19 to 1, and the water left over cools the engine and the timing can be retarded as the need for wastefully compressing gas is lessened by retarding the timing. if a car is 65 % efficient, then this gas additive, not a liquid, but a gas, aids in a shorter compression stroke, and allows your ef injectors to pump less money out your wallet, burns the mix better, and evokes engineers pull out their calculators on one bum steer after another to on paper teach you what redneck hot rodders have known all along: that mouth aint gonna get you to beat nobody in the 1/4 mile race, but grime and a work will
My interest, enthusiasm, and rational thinking have been stimulated by this HHO & similar technology and by the many comments here. However, I keep coming back to this bit of folk wisdom: "You don't get something for nothing". Which more or less lines up with theories of entropy, in particular the 2nd law of thermodynamics. These are a bunch of ideas which deal with dissipated energy, both useful (what we want) and useless (what we don't want and/or we cannot readily use).
Given that raising or lowering the temperature of matter by adding or removing heat from a particular state of matter (solid, liquid, or gas) requires far less energy than does the application of energy to cause matter to change state (solid to liquid, etc. up to sublimation) then it stands to reason that it will require more energy to change a liquid (H2O) into a gas (H) than will be realized by increasing the temperature of that gas to a level of combustible usefulness (with a spark plug or whatever). In other words, changing the state of water into a gas (H) and then getting that gas to combust and produce energy will result in a net energy loss.
Therefore, I agree with several bloggers here that while HHO & similar may have practical industrial uses, where net energy loss does not play a primary role, its use as a replacement for crude oil distillates remains impractical at present (2008 AD).
Besides, assuming that this technology has been around for 10 years or so, why aren't we seeing any production motor vehicles using it now?
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