Say Electrolytic Injection: not HHO, H2O, Brown’s Gas, or Hydrogen

One of the major problems with the folks who are developing water as a fuel source, is that they do not currently have a good catchphrase for their products. I am standing before you as an industry supporter and thinker, proclaiming to you that what we need is consolidated, thoughtful, and marketable terminology for this fledgling industry.

Number One, we need to move away from using the word “water” in the product description. This is certainly not to hide the fact that the products use water as a vital element in the production of the combustible gases. The reason to leave “water” out of the product description is that even laypeople (non-scientists) know without doubt that water will not burn. By removing water from the product description, we will prevent the knee-jerk reaction of many potential buyers – arguing and disputing the combustibility of water. We do not want to look like Snake Oil salesmen by proclaiming that we are somehow burning water in our engines, when the truth is that water is the combustion product.

Number Two, we need to limit our naming of the gases involved in combustion to a secondary description of the product. We should avoid saying that we sell a product that produces or burns either “Brown’s gas” or HHO. These terns are useful; however, they are not marketable in the large sense. These complex gases are just that to consumers – they are complex to understand and difficult to explain.

Number Three, we need to position our products as becoming a technological revolution. The generic term for these products must be concise, catchy, unique, and descriptive. I want to give you a classic example of how the marketability of a generic term can affect it. I want you to try an experiment. Go into a store which sells consumer electronics and ask the cashier where the “IEEE 1384 products” are. Go ahead and google “ieee 1384” and see what I mean. What an absurd term for what Apple Computer calls a FireWire cable. (ha) (By the way, I hope to rank for IEEE-1384 cables some day.) Here we have techno-speak juxtaposed against marketing acumen. We must lay aside HHO and Brown’s Gas when we talk about these products in a general sense.

Now I am saying this to highlight the fact that we need to coin a marketable and potentially long-lasting term that can be put on the billboards, advertisements, web pages, and articles that the industry can preferentially and universally use… without prejudice. I have such a phrase which I will propose shortly, but since the title of this video has given you a priori knowledge of my proposed term, I will provide you some additional reasoning for my choice.

Let us consider for a moment that the process by which these products generate a combustible gas is none other than a simple chemical decomposition. That is, we take water as the sole chemical reactant species, and by adding energy in the form of electric current, we produce a mixture of the constituents of H2O. These constituents are hydrogen and oxygen. These two gasses are produced in a 2:1 ratio, the bulk of which is diatomic hydrogen, and the rest is diatomic oxygen. There are also a number of smaller by-products generated, the makeup of which has been researched by others.

Now this mixture of gaseous products is then injected into the airstream of a combustion engine with a significant effect on the consumption of the fuel normally burned by the engine (whether this is gasoline, diesel, distillate, or petrol, the effect is similar). One of the essential features of this process is that it is done continuously, rather than in batches, so in most applications the production of combustible gasses is coincident with its use as a supplemental fuel. In other words, the gasses are not stored; they are promptly used soon after genesis.

What I have described is normally called “Brown’s Gas” or HHO or “water for fuel.” It’s what the Wikipedia calls oxyhydrogen. What I want to highlight about this process and these products are the fact that electrolysis is the key to the production, and injection is the key to the utilization, of these combustible gases in an internal combustion engine, or ICE. Call the source of the gases whatever you want: but it must use electricity to generate it. Call the gases whatever you want: but they must be injected.

My speech, therefore, being pro re nata in the light of a new and burgeoning market for fuel-saving devices that use water and electricity as a source of combustible gases, must call you to act. You must change your language and terminology so that we can unite on the fundamental issue of “What is it?”

“What do you got over there?” is the question your customers want answers to. They need to start seeing consistency in the trade publications and on the Internet. They need to see a recurring theme in the news media which represents our unique market segment. Here are the keywords which describe disparate technologies that achieve similar goals: Hybrid, Hydrogen Fuel Cell, Propane Injection, Nitrous Oxide Injection, Electric Car, Hybrid Electric Vehicle or HEV, Zero Emission Vehicle or ZEV, Biofuel and Biodiesel, Straight Vegetable Oil or SVO, Flexible Fuel or Flex Fuel, Ethanol, Alternative Fuel, and the list goes on and on. I stumbled around for a long time trying to determine what in the world to call this technology. Of the many technologies out there for alternative fuels, this technology is most similar to the hydrogen vehicles, which presently cost upwards of a million dollars in 2008, and older injection schemes such as nitrous and propane.

Calling this technology hydrogen injection would definitely be a show stopper. We do not want to promote our products proclaiming the hydrogen aspect of the combustible gases produced. When I discuss this with many folks, saying that we run on hydrogen sounds to them as either dangerous or science fiction. That is my personal impression of the way our mass media and public education has affected the minds of potential customers. In short: hydrogen spooks people.

So although these products do indeed burn a lot of hydrogen, for marketability, Hydrogen is not a “safe” term to use in a brief description of the process. I am being honest here: I definitely want folks to understand how the products work; don’t get me wrong; but if I have to go into a long explanation to do that, I feel in many ways the customer is only going to grasp the chemistry and mechanical principles weakly at best.

And so we need to borrow from the chemistry lab a term in which many people are unfamiliar. The word is electrolytic. It is unfortunately not a common word to certain potential customers; however it describes perfectly what our products do. They perform electrolysis. The English Wikipedia currently describes electrolysis as “a method of separating chemically bonded elements and compounds by passing an electric current through them.” Now, I want to make a comment about this term.

Electrolysis is performed in many chemistry labs in secondary schools, high schools, and universities. I remember distinctly watching Mrs. Street, my high school chemistry teacher, doing this experiment at the front of the class. I loved it. It was done on water plus an electrolyte like perhaps sulfuric acid. But I want everyone to understand that this technology might some day be expanded to use another chemical species besides water as the precursor. Hypothetically, someday we might use the electrolysis of benzene to run an ICE. The principles would be the same except for the chemical reactant used.

And so, in conclusion, I am promoting a new and exciting nomenclature for our industry. I need for you to follow my lead on this. I am asking that you drop your focus on HHO and Brown’s gas and water and hydrogen and use the terms that I propose. I must say that using the term “hybrid” is going to be acceptable, but if you will allow me to say it, it is a highly watered down term. Yes, we are building vehicles that become a hybrid to some degree, but a hybrid of what? Very few vehicles are currently said to run on HHO exclusively, and there are few supporters of it at this time. But in any case, we are running on a hybrid of two fuels.

We must tell customers that our products are producing a boost of efficiency or power, but rather than focusing on the clean-burning of hydrogen or the enrichment of oxygen, let us say that we do this through electrolysis. And we do it through injection into the engine’s air intake.

Join with me and other industry leaders on calling this exciting new technology ELECTROLYTIC INJECTION.

Happy marketing out there to all of you who are working hard dispel myths, lies, and rumors about electrolytic injection. Remember to look into the Wikipedia, which at the time of this video had an article called “Hydrogen fuel enhancement” that describes the process now known as electrolytic injection.

Here are some of the terms that appeared in the video. I compiled a list of the words and phrases found on many websites and in videos discussing electrolytic injection. Here is an exhaustive list, although it doesn't necessarily include trademarked names of individual products or companies. This list may be expanded as more research is done. However, can we all just pick a reasonable name for these devices and stick with it?

Names for the device that converts water into hydrogen and oxygen

• Burn water as well as gasoline
• Discover how to generate free energy
• Electrolytic booster (my coined name for it)
• Electrolytic generator (my coined name for it)
• Electrolyzer (pretty good)
• HHO/Brown's gas generator
• HHO-Hybrid Unit
• HHO Kit (this is very succinct, but flawed)
• Hybrid hydrogen oxygen system
• Hydrobooster
• Hydro-booster
• Hydrogen boost system
• Hydrogen booster
• Hydrogen gas generator
• Hydrogen generator
• Hydrogen injection system (not bad)
• Hydrogen-On-Demand system
• Joe cell (a divergent but similar idea)
• On board electrolysis fuel cells
• Oxy hydrogen kit
• Run your car on water
• Water fuel hydrogen conversion kit
• Water fuel system
• Water hybrid
• Watercars
• Water-to-energy converter

Names for the gas

• Brown's egas
• Brown's gas
• di-hydroxy
• e-gas (please, let's not say this)
• Electrolysis gas
• Electrolytic gas
• egaspower (you have to be kidding)
• green gas
• HHO fuel cell
• HHO gas
• Hydrogen fuel boost system
• Hydroxy gas
• Knallgas (German knall = "To Bang")
• Rhode's/Brown's gas generator
• Rhodes' gas
• Supplemental hydrogen generator
• Water as fuel
• Water for fuel
• Water for gas
• Water4gas
• Watergas