HHO, Aquygen, Brown’s Gas, Save on fuel?

So I have seen a lot of stuff popping up about HHO technologies, or aquygen, or Brown’s gas. (all of these things are basically the same thing) As a Chemical Engineer I hope to provide a clear explanation of this “technology” and clear up any falacies associated with it.

First of all, HHO gas, a gas whose structure is Hydrogen Hydrogen Oxygen does not exist. This is impossible because the bond between Oxygen and Hydrogen in water is structure specific because of the way it shares electrons. If this bond breaks you will be left with Diotonic Hydrogen and Diotonic Oxygen. Besides, if there were a such thing as HHO gas it would kill us because the negatively charged Oxygen would attatch to the hemoglobins in our blood the same way Carbon Monoxide does. (Carbon Monoxide is CO)

So now that we have shown that HHO does not exist what is “HHO gas”?

HHO gas is actually Oxyhydrogen which is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases. Naturally this mixture would be 2:1 because there are 2 hydrogens for every oxygen in water. When you burn this gas you are getting most, if if not all, of the heat and energy from the hydrogen gas (O2 wont produce heat or energy, it will mostly keep the flame burning and after combustion it will reunite with H2 again to form water).

So, this gas is useful for torches. This is true because hydrogen can burn VERY HOT at a maximum temperature of 2800 degrees celsius. Some people, in fact the “founder” of hydrogen technologies and the owner of the patent on Aquyegen (HHO for use in vehicles) uses the fact that this gas can be used for torches to conclude that this gas could be used to improve gas mileage in a vehicle.

This is a fallacy of logic, and the analysis of the combustion cycle in vehicles can show this is absolutely false. Although Hydrgogen gas does burn hot 1mole of gas (2.0016 Grams) produces about 241.8KJ of energy. (For reference, I mole of gas take up about 24.615L) The energy required to electrolyze one mol of water into 1 mol of hydrogen gas is 286.04KJ. Now assuming that we have high effeciency (perhaps 100%) we can see that the energy from burning 1 mol of H2 = 241.8KJ, while the energy required to electrolyze one mole of H2O (producing one mole of H2) is 286.04 therefore you lose 44.24 KJ of energy with every mole of H2 gas.

In conclusion, it is absolutley absurd to believe that “HHO” will increase gas mileage, HHO gas does not exist, and H2 is very hard to get from water. The likelyhood of HHO generators to be 100% efficient is extremely unlikely (usually they get very hot, which indicates lose of energy) and even if they were they would produce -44.24 KJ in the end. Therefore, save you money and stay away from HHO or Browns or Aquygen if you can!!!

(side note, this technology is useful for torches because of the high temperature that H2 burns at, they can be more efficient, and cost effective (depending on how much gas is versus elecricity) but for vehicles there is no application that makes any sense accourding to the laws of thermodynamics and energy conservation!

note– one kW (kilo watt) = 1KJ/s, one watt =1J/s|  a Vehicles elecric system runs at 12 volts, and 1amp at 12 volts is 12watts| if you use 20 amps than you generate 240Watts.| one Liter of H2 gas equals .040625 mols of H2|  electrolyzing enough H2O for 1 L of H2 requires 11.62KJ=11620J| In one minute 240 watts creates 14400 J or 14.400KJ of energy/minute. If you have 100% efficiency you can create 1.239L of H2 gas.| 1.239 L sounds like a lot, but for H2 gas that is .0406 mol of gas. this creates 11.61KJ of energy. If we are incredibly optimistc and suppose that energy is not lost in electolyzis (which we hace proven is not true) than we can say that the generator is supplying 11.61 KJ of energy per minute. The required energy amount is 12KJ therefore you are losing energy by the minute when you produce this gas ( at 100% efficiency)