Denny Klein - Fuel from Water - Is this a scam?

calladus

Critical Thinker
calladus
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Feb 23, 2003
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One of my co-workers send me information on a Denny Klein who has just applied for a patent on a water to fuel technology.

He says he's discovered a 'new property' of water (which I take as a buzzword for 'fraud'). He calls his discovery HHO (as apposed to H2O)

The problem is that I don't know near enough chemistry to figure out if this guy is talking out of his hat.

Anyone want to look at this guy's claims?

His patent application number is: 20060075683 and can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/np2hn from the USPTO search function located at:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html

There's a Wiki that contains a Fox News video at:
http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Hydrogen_Technology_Applications_Inc#Video_Feature

And Klein's web site is at:
http://hytechapps.com/


I guess it's time to crack open my old Chemistry text book.
 
HOH is more correct way of writing it, as its actually a hydrogen atom bonded to a hydroxide ion. I like hydrogen hydroxide better than the more common "dihydron monoxide."
 
It sure sounds like a scam!

A few excerpts from their web site ...

When the H2O Model 1500 Aquygen™ Gas Generator is used as a gas welder, Aquygen™ Gas can weld, cut, braze, solder, metal clad and fuse materials such as ceramics, metals, cermets, glass, plastics and inter-metallic materials together, such as metal-to-metal, metal to glass, ferrous to non*ferrous, and dissimilar metals to each other, which is a true fusion process heretofore unavailable.

How one could weld metal to glass to plastic to cement is beyond me. I have never even heard of such a thing being theorized.

Our technology centers on the ability to generate a unique type of hydrogen/oxygen gas mixture (a "unique gas", which we call "Aquygen™" gas) on demand from a lightweight, compact machine that uses the water electrolysis process as its underlying technology basis.

This unique gas is infinitely stable until it comes in contact with a select target media. Then it sublimates, causing a molecular surface exchange of certain elements, reacting with such excitation as to cause temperatures of up to 10,000° F, the temperature of our Sun's surface, which is currently the limits of our ability to measure.

An infinitely stable gas? That sure is weird.

Also, their fuel is apparently nothing more than a special mix of hydrogen and oxygen; but I have no idea (nor does the web site spell out) how this mix can reach such high temperatures without the use of some very, very specialized equipment.

Finally, they are selling 'Licenses' so that one can become a dealer for their company. One often sees this trick on scam web sites.
 
I also don't have any special insight into what they are talking about but if one wanted to make something sound like a scam, this sight might be a good source of ideas.

This from the site:
The ability to create this stable, unique gas on demand from a water electrochemical generator is of great strategic importance, especially because (1) it offers a workable energy level per pound of fuel that is ten-to-twelve times that of gasoline; (2) when combusted/ignited, it causes no hydrocarbon effluents such as NOX, nitrites, nitrates, etc., and (3) its by-product from combustion is pure, environmentally-friendly water.
Click to expand...

According to several web sites burning hydrogen produces about three times as much energy as burning gasoline per equivalent mass. So the energy density (by mass) of their gas is about three times higher than pure hydrogen. The other claims are a little dodgy also. Burning hydrogen doesn't produce hydrocarbons because hydrogen doesn't contain carbon but burning hydrogen in the air does produce NOX (which I don't believe are classified as hydrocarbons). If their gas consisted of a mix of hydrogen and oxygen it wouldn't produce NOX when it was burned because the hydrogen was being burned in a pure oxygen environment. But if they were doing that then one would expect the energy density of their gas to be much lower.

So amongst the properties of their gas are:
1. burning it produces pure water
2. it has three times the energy density of pure hydrogen

So from this we can conclude that their gas isn't hydrogen or a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen because the energy density is so high and that their gas is hydrogen because burning it produces water.
 
total woo
HHO == HOH == OHH == H2O

There is no difference

it is like saying:
I've found a new property of water (2*2*4), instead of combining it as usual water (2*2*4) we combine it like this (2*4*2) and thus get AMAZING NEW ABILITIES.

In case you haven't done math in some time 2*4*2 == 2*2*4.

Same difference.

Total woo.
 
Crossbow said:
This unique gas is infinitely stable until it comes in contact with a select target media. Then it sublimates, causing a molecular surface exchange of certain elements, reacting with such excitation as to cause temperatures of up to 10,000° F, the temperature of our Sun's surface, which is currently the limits of our ability to measure.[/I]
Click to expand...
I'd be interested in knowing how a gas sublimates since sublimation is the process of changing directly from solid to gas without going through a liquid phase (like dry ice).

And we can surely measure temperatures hotter than the sun's surface...
 
patnray said:
And we can surely measure temperatures hotter than the sun's surface...
Click to expand...

No kidding. Even if all our 'thermometers' maxed out at some value, we could just measure from further away and extrapolate the real value. GAH!
 
patnray said:
I'd be interested in knowing how a gas sublimates since sublimation is the process of changing directly from solid to gas without going through a liquid phase (like dry ice).
Click to expand...
Maybe this is a new kind of sublimation -- conversion into subtle matter. I'd have preferred sublime matter but I've never heard of any such thing.

Then again... *googles* Ah. I should've known. Every time I try to come up with an idea too far-fetched to have been thought of before, I fail. Sublime matter seems to be involved in spiritualism. :-S

Righty then, conversion into sublime matter it is.

(BTW, back in the days when football fields were made of real grass, turf was a kind of sublime matter.)
 
TobiasTheCommie said:
total woo
HHO == HOH == OHH == H2O

There is no difference

it is like saying:
I've found a new property of water (2*2*4), instead of combining it as usual water (2*2*4) we combine it like this (2*4*2) and thus get AMAZING NEW ABILITIES.

In case you haven't done math in some time 2*4*2 == 2*2*4.

Same difference.

Total woo.
Click to expand...


As written H-H-O would be a distinct chemical entity from H-O-H, even if their chemical formulae are the same. Only problem is that the H-H-O molecule is unknown. If Denny Klein has isolated this species he will probably be hailed as the inorganic chemist of the century.
 
calladus said:
One of my co-workers send me information on a Denny Klein who has just applied for a patent on a water to fuel technology.
Click to expand...
Please remember that the existence of a patent application has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of any claim.

If I wanted to, I could pay the bucks and show you a similar patent application for my quantum-levitating-psychic-astrological-orb-generator-and-combination-wand-for-turning-lead-into-gold.

All an application means is that someone took the time and expense to file an application. It appears as if this patent application was filed to be able to try to fool the gullible using the fallacy of Appeal to Authority.

Even a granted patent does not necessarily mean the device works. I've seen a patent for a perpetual motion machine, sufficiently cloaked in technical mumbo-jumbo. All it means was that the design, as stated, was original and did not infringe on a previous patent.

- Timothy
 
Compleate and utter woo......

Well maybe not compleatly, as there was once apon a time, a welding gas, known as Brown's Gas.
This gas was moderatly stable under normal operating conditions, but cylinders of this gas had an unfortunate tendency to wander into the realm of Exothermic instability, when their contents pressure fell below, iirc, 200 psi.

ie the cylinders had a nasty tendency to blow up, if close to empty.

Hence the very brief existance of the gas mixture for commercial applications, before it promptly disapeared back into obscurity.

Other than that minor defect, Brown's gas gave a very hot, clean flame, and was suitible to be used to weld/cut all sorts of material, and could even be used for welding/cutting ceramics/glass.
And you only had to invest in one cylinder, regulator, and hose!
So much more convenient to lug around that two seperate cylinders of oxygen and fuel!

And more to the point the only oxidation byproduct was.......












Water

Yes, Brown's Gas was a mix of 11% Hydrogen in Oxygen.:D
 
A product, too good to be true, that will probably kill any costumer... How Dilbert-esque. :)
 
Timothy said:
Please remember that the existence of a patent application has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of any claim.
- Timothy
Click to expand...

As the holder of a couple of Engineering patents, and from doing a lot of patent research, I can attest to that.

The only hard & fast rule the USPO seems to have, is no perpetual motion machines. However, they don't seem to have a problem with perpetual energy machines.

Patent's don't mean that something works, they just give the holder exclusive rights to sell their device for a period of time. Whether they sell a wonderful product or snake oil is up to them.
 
anor277 said:
As written H-H-O would be a distinct chemical entity from H-O-H, even if their chemical formulae are the same. Only problem is that the H-H-O molecule is unknown. If Denny Klein has isolated this species he will probably be hailed as the inorganic chemist of the century.
Click to expand...

Define "isolated"?

I actually know of a way to study the isolated, gas-phase molecule (you can access it by photodetaching the oxygen anion-hydrogen cluster, although making that cluster requires pretty good cooling). Definately the isolated molecule. Definately not bulk material.
 
Crossbow said:
Also, their fuel is apparently nothing more than a special mix of hydrogen and oxygen; but I have no idea (nor does the web site spell out) how this mix can reach such high temperatures without the use of some very, very specialized equipment.
Click to expand...

It depends on the heat capacity of the material. If the material in question has a low heat capacity, then it wouldn't be too much of a challenge to get the temperature up. Burning hydrogen is extremely exothermic, and is also very rapid (a hydrogen/oxygen mixture explodes much more rapidly than pure hydrogen). Therefore, if you can direct the combustion, you can get pretty hot.
 
Based on some reading on various Brown's gas sites I think I understand the claims a little bit better.

As was suggested the site referenced claims are so similar to Brown's gas claims as to make it seem very likely that this is what they are talking about although for their own purposes they seem to have changed some of the terminology in an attempt to hide that fact.

There seem to be three common basic claims for Brown's gas:
1. Browns's gas consists of a stoichiometric of monatomic oxygen and hydrogen.
2. The Brown's gas electrolysis process produces this mixture of monatomic oxygen and hydrogen whereas a normal electrolysis process produces mostly diatomic oxygen and diatomic hydrogen.
3. The mostly monatomic gas produces substantially more energy when it is burned because the oxygen doesn't need to break down into monatomic oxygen before combining with the hydrogen to make water.

I don't know enough ehemistry to be able to comment on the above claims. It does appear that it is possible to make a mixture of largely monatomic oxygen. Apparently NASA has developed a process for that because they have developed a device for cleaining old paintings with a jet of monatomic oxygen. The idea is that monatomic oxygen is super reactive and it combines rapidly with some substances so as to remove them from the painting. In one demonstration they showed a jet of monatomic oxygen being used to remove lipstick.

I couldn't find anything on the web that talked about the increased energy produced by a reactiion with monatomic oxygen as opposed to diatomic oxygen. I also didn't find anything that addressed the claims that monatomic oxygen was produced by the Brown's gas electrolysis process that wasn't some kind of Brown's gas site.

Wikipedia had a somwhat skeptical overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown%27s_gas
 
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I would have thought that as soon as two oxygen atoms meet they will react and form an oxygen molecule.

Also be very hard to get oxygen atoms.
 
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