Brown's gas

Brown's gas (named for Yull Brown) or Rhode's gas (named for William Rhodes), is a combustible gaseous mixture produced through water electrolysis. Similar, if not identical in chemical makeup, gases are known as:


 * Oxy-Hydrogen
 * Green Gas
 * Hydroxy
 * Di-Hydroxy
 * Watergas
 * HHO gas
 * Klein gas (named for Dennis Klein),
 * Aquygen&trade; (Hydrogen Technology Applications Inc.)

Various devices, predominantly water torches, which produce the gas have been patented.

The resulting gas or mixture of gases is often claimed by device manufacturers and enthusiasts to exhibit peculiar and extraordinary properties, such as the gas having "unique energy properties and a novel atomic structure."

No independent studies have been performed on the gas resulting from the patented processes to confirm their true nature and makeup.

Development
In 1966, physicist Dr. William Rhodes patented the first water torch. In 1977, Yull Brown expanded upon the patent to produce a similar water torch. In 2004, Dennis Klein, of Hydrogen Technology Applications (HyTech) patented an, again, expanded version of Brown's water torch.

Claims
Among the many claims made about Brown's gas are:
 * It can be produced by electrolyzing water with no waste heat.
 * The volume of the gas is greater (almost twice as much) than would be expected from normal electrolysis.
 * It burns with a cold flame, yet somehow can be used to weld metals more efficiently than conventional fuels.
 * Under certain circumstances it implodes rather than explodes when ignited.
 * It is viable as a carbon fuel enhancer.
 * It is viable as a torch fuel.

Theories
The most popular theory presented to explain these properties is that Brown's gas contains monatomic hydrogen and oxygen in significant proportions. This would explain the higher volume (the volume of a gas is proportional to the number of particles), but not some of the other claims. In particular, monatomic hydrogen and oxygen would burn with a hotter flame because the monatomic form has more energy than the normal diatomic form and this extra energy would be released as heat.

There are different explanations for how the monatomic gasses can exist at normal pressure instead of immediately combining (there is no activation energy because there are no bonds to be broken), none of which is fully satisfactory.

Criticism
Skeptics point out that there is no solid evidence for any of these unusual properties, and suggest that all the observations could be explained by normal electrolysis and ordinary diatomic hydrogen and oxygen. Proponents seem reluctant to perform direct comparisons of Brown's gas with hydrogen/oxygen mixtures produced by more conventional means.

Claims that Brown's gas could be used as fuel for cars and other everyday energy needs are also met with skepticism, because it has not been demonstrated that it can be compressed to fit into a reasonable space without becoming dangerously explosive. Even proponents of some forms of the gas acknowledge that it is chronically unstable-rapidly degrading into basic H2 and O2 gas. It is thus unsuitable for storage, and can only be produced on demand. This makes the gas impractical for automotive use, as stored electricity used for on-demand electrolysis would be more efficiently spent on a purely electrical propulsion system. Even if storage problems are overcome, the gas's capacity to store energy is limited by the first law of thermodynamics, and thus offers no unique energy storage characteristics when compared to "normal" hydrogen. Conventional electrolysis of water into hydrogen already achieves theoretical energy efficiency of up to 94% (see main article on electrolysis for a complete discussion of efficiency), and no study on Brown's gas has properly researched the efficiency of the production process.