HHO

Yull Brown

HHO (also Browns Gas, Browngas, Brown's Gas, Braun Gas, Green Gas, Rhode's Gas, Dirty Hydrogen or Watergas) is a gaseous explosive mix of hydrogen and oxygen, which is also called Knallgas. Pseudoscientific circles claim that the mixture has special properties and avoid the name Knallgas in favor of names like Browns Gas or HHO. Browns Gas traces back to the Australian electro engineer and inventor Yull Brown(born 1922 as Ilya Velbov, Bulgarien - 1998) who constructed in the 1960s several devices for electrolysis and welding with Knallgas. Yull Brown is often wrongly credited with a doctor of professorial title.

Characteristics

Commercial (serious) electrolysis devices for hydrogen production

Knallgas can be won through electrolysis of water using electrical energy. In principal, electricity is just conducted in water, whose conductivity has been increased by adding acid or a base. Knallgas can also develop from water at very high temperatures.

Knallgas is very explosive. At ignition water(and some hydrogen peroxide) is again created from hydrogen and oxygen(). To ignite under atmospheric pressure the ratio of hydrogen has to be between 4 and 77%. The fiercest reaction happens at a ratio of 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen.

Claimed wonder characteristics

Elektrolysis adaption kit for the car to "save gas"

In some pseudoscientific circles the oxygen/hydrogen mix, called Browns Gas or HHO, is a gas with peculiar properties. It is often claimed that its energy is much higher than of normal Knallgas. No serious explanation is given.

HHO is a topic for supporters of free energy. They hold the false opinion that combustion of Knallgas creates more energy than is necessary for its creation. Because of that a combined electrolysis with following combustion may be used as an energy source. Research done in USA showed that such an onboard water electrolysis doesn't make sense since the fuel consumption increases, it does not decrease as claimed.

Several fraudulent Water-fuelled car concepts are based on this principle. The offered devices don't allow to retool a car fully to operate with water, but a considerable amount of fuel is said to be saved. Several companies offer mostly in USA electrolysis sets under labels like HHO Fuel Saver or Hydroxy Booster, which are allegedly powered by current from the car battery. The created Knallgas is used as extra fuel for the engine. A German vendor of such products is the Jülicher Clean World Energies GmbH.

As already noted by Brown, Browns Gas is claimed to be especially useful for welding. The well known hydrogen-welding has almost no practical appliance since oxyacetylene and electrogas or Electroslag welding have various advantages.

Browns Gas is claimed to enable a hypothetical transmutation of atoms that may be used to decontaminate radioactive waste. With a Browns-Gas-flame radioactive substances are to be fused with metals, which would decrease radioactivity by 95%.

Conspiracy theories

In connection with alleged special properties of HHO it is also often claimed that combined electrolysis and combustion are so simple an brilliant that nobody got the idea to use Knallgas as solution for the worldwide energy deficit. It is claimed that the principle is too simple to be of commercial interest. Usage of HHO has not been implemented because of low degrees of efficiency but due to the resistance of powerful corporations which repress in the sense of a conspiracy its use. Inventors and researchers of HHO have to do their work in secrecy.

Economy and energy balance

It is currently(2011) economically better to win hydrogen from petroleum or petroleum gas and oxygen than use electrolysis.

• The degree of efficiency of electrolysis of water to create hydrogen and oxygen is currently at 57%, some energy is lost as heat. Special electrolysis units may reach efficiencies of 70% or 80% at high temperatures and with addition of potassium hydroxide. Research is done with high temperature steam electrolysis (at 800–1000°C) at solid electrolyte. To create 1 m³ hydrogen in modern facilities needs about 4,3–4,9 kWh electrical energy.
• Efficiency of Knallgas-reactions is also not 100% but just about 70%.
• Transforming energy of Knallgas explosions to kinetic energy in an engine has an efficiency of about 30%. Besides of that, problems are caused by the higher combustion temperature of Knallgas compared to normal fuel and a higher emission of nitrogen oxides.
• The retooling kits to "save energy" for cars decrease efficiency another time, since the electrical energy is drawn lossy from alternator and in turn from the engine from regular fuel. Noteworthy amounts of HHO cannot be created this way due to the limitation of the electrical energy. Saving it in pressure tanks to have more gas available if needed would cause a further decrease in efficiency.

Versions of this article in other languages

• Deutsch: HHO

Weblinks

• http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~ltemgoua/chemie/Knallgas.html
• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektrolyse
• http://evolution.loremo.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,138/func,view/id,19425/catid,23/limit,30/limitstart,90/lang,de/