HHO gas

HHO ("Hybrid Hydrogen Oxygen") or Klein gas is a gas created by an electrolysis process from water, which is claimed to have special properties.

Aquygen is the commercial trademark for this gas used by Hydrogen Technology Applications, Inc. (HTA), which sells gas generators for use in welding and cutting torches (a form of water torch). HTA also claims that the gas is useful as a "primary fuel source or a fuel additive", enhancing the fuel efficiency of gasoline, diesel and aircraft turbine engines".

Ruggero Maria Santilli of the Institute for Basic Research wrote a paper in the 2006 International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, based on spectrometry analyses of the gas, which he claims support his non-standard "magnecule" theory of physics. Some of his claimed special properties would defy known laws of physics. There exists no peer reviewed article in reputable scientific literature substantiating the claims put forward by proponents of this gas.

The gas has been presented in the media as a fuel for welding and for cars, with the reporters claiming that it extracts energy from water. James Randi and others point out that the welding technique was invented decades earlier by William Rhodes and Yull Brown, and that similar dubious claims have been made about Brown's gas and water-fuelled cars in the past, but are known hoaxes. Water cannot be used as a fuel source; it can only be used to generate hydrogen, which then functions as an energy carrier, not an energy source. (See hydrogen economy.)

Properties


Although it is formed in the same way as oxyhydrogen (also called Brown's gas), and shares many identical properties, HHO is claimed by HTA and Santilli to have unusual properties that distinguish it as a unique compound. Like oxyhydrogen, HHO gas is odorless, colorless and lighter than air.

Proponents allege that:
 * HHO gas exhibits a widely varying "energy content", and that the flame changes temperature in the presence of different materials, ranging from a relatively cold flame (259°F) in open air to over 10,000°F, "instantaneously" sublimating tungsten and melting brick. All normal fuels have a fixed value of energy content (Santilli measures in BTU/scf).
 * The demonstration of "sublimating" tungsten by heating it in air is highly misleading, however. In air, the tungsten oxidizes easily to tungsten trioxide, which forms solid smoke particles and has a much lower boiling point of about 1700 °C.  (This is why light bulbs with tungsten filaments are filled with an inert gas like nitrogen or argon.)  A real demonstration of sublimation of tungsten would need to be done in an oxygen-free environment.
 * HHO gas does not follow the fundamental PVT law for gases, changing from a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen into liquid water at 150 psi. This would require a chemical change as well as a phase change.
 * HHO gas adheres anomalously to gases, liquids and solids, including to gaseous fuels (such as natural gas, magnegas fuel, and others) and liquid fuels (such as diesel, gasoline, liquid petroleum, and others).

Magnecules
Santilli, basing his theory on claims of variable energy content and flames which can "melt instantaneously tungsten and bricks", claimed that HHO gas has a "unique structure with a chemical composition that cannot be described by modern science". He claims that gas chromatography-mass spectrometry experiments show evidence of stable clusters composed of individual H and O atoms, and the molecules, and H2O. According to Santilli these cannot be explained by conventional chemical bonds. He proposes, instead, that the gas contains an oxygen-hydrogen hybrid, based on a structure he names a "magnecule", in a structure which has yet to be understood. HHO is described to have the structure (H×H)–O where “×” represents Santilli's magnecular bond and “–” the conventional molecular bond. The transition from the conventional H–O–H configuration to the new (H×H)–O species is explained as being a change of the electric polarization of water caused by the electrolyzer. These claims have not yet been verified through multiple independent research studies nor are they endorsed or held by any scientist of repute in the field.

News coverage
The promotion of this gas has been featured in popular science television programs and news articles that did not comment on its veracity.

Water-fuelled car
News covering the promotion presented HHO as an "energy source" or "alternative fuel", and refer to HTA's demonstration vehicle as a "water-powered car" (a common hoax/urban legend that exploits popular misconceptions about the energy balance involved in electrolysis and combustion). This flaw in reasoning has been explained in the news programs by Dr. Ali T-Raissi, Hydrogen Research Director of the Florida Solar Energy Center, and Sieglinde Kinne, Energy Efficiency Engineer for the Kentucky Pollution Prevention Center: Creating hydrogen from water requires an energy input, which is always greater than the energy produced by burning it.

Although HTA does not actually claim a water-powered car (they describe their own demonstration vehicle as a "hybrid vehicle" with a "1.9 liter engine with little modifications" in which HHO is injected in addition to normal gasoline), they do state that HHO can be used as a "primary fuel source or a fuel additive", and that water is the "source of HHO's energy". They claim that HHO gas can be injected into a normal automobile gasoline engine to increase fuel efficiency by 30-50%, eliminate CO2 from the exhaust, and can increase the "thermal content" of liquid fuels like gasoline and diesel. According to Steve Lusko, project manager for HTA, the decrease in emissions is due to the highly efficient burn.