posted May 20, 2006 07:08 PM         

Photo by: MARK GUSS / Tribune
Denny Klein, president of Hydrogen Technology Applications, demonstrates a machine that uses electricity to extract fuel from water.

Clearwater Man Puts Technology To Work
By WILL RODGERS wjrodgers@tampatrib.com
Published: Nov 27, 2005

Photo: Denny Klein demonstrates the flame on a welding tool powered by a machine that uses water and an electrical charge to create fuel. "You get a huge energy response," Klein says. "But this gas is very, very safe."

CLEARWATER -- Denny Klein thinks he has found a new commercial use for hydrogen technology.

Working in a small, two-room shop at the Airport Business Center, Klein, 63, said he has developed a gas that speeds welding and fusing times and improves automobile fuel efficiency 30 percent.

Although the technology Klein uses -- electrolysis -- has been around for decades, he said it's the form of gas that comes out of his electrolyzer and the characteristics of the gas that set his hydrogen technology apart.

Klein's gas is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Sound familiar? Yep, it's water.
Electrolysis is a process that uses an electrical charge in water to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. But coming out of Klein's gas generator, the H2O 1500 electrolyzer, it's not water, he said. Klein, president of Hydrogen Technology Applications Inc., calls it HHO, or the brand name Aquygen.

"You get a huge energy response," Klein said. "But this gas is very, very safe."
Klein -- who employs eight people, four in Florida, three who handle licensing out of Kentucky and his son, Greg, in Ohio -- is no engineer. The Ohio native attended Ohio State University and Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, for business administration.

His aptitude in hydrogen technology came from self-study. He has worked alongside engineers in whirlpool spa and suntanning businesses, and says he has six employees with doctorates on his advisory board.

Klein said he has a patent pending on the gas he has been working on for 12 years. Various models of his H2O electrolyzers are being used across the country in high school shop classes and undergoing testing to be certified for use in welding shops.

Flipping a switch on his H2O 1500, Klein picks up a hose with a metal tip, creates a spark, and instantly a blue and white glowing stream shoots out of the metal tip.
He holds the tip with his fingers to prove how cool it is to the touch, unlike such a tip when oxy-acetylene is burned for welding. But the instant he sets the flame on a charcoal briquette, it glows bright orange. Then, within seconds, he burns a hole through a brick, cuts steel and melts Tungsten.

The temperature of the flame is 259 degrees Fahrenheit. But it instantaneously rises to the melting temperature of whatever it touches, Klein said. Those temperatures can exceed 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
"You can't do this with any other gas," he said.

Klein also has outfitted a 1994 Ford Escort station wagon with a smaller electrolyzer that injects his HHO into the gasoline in the car's engine. He said he has increased his mileage per gallon by 30 percent.
That also is undergoing testing from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other private motorsports companies, Klein said.

Klein said he has 19 projects in the works.
Ali T-Raissi, director of the hydrogen research and development division of the Florida Solar Energy Center, said he is not familiar with Klein's HHO or electrolyzer. But he said applying hydrogen technology in that way comes at a price.

T-Raissi said mixing the hydrogen with gasoline will require a change in the typical car engine. And creating the gas requires electricity, which comes at a cost.
"You can increase your mileage performance, but you have to ask: Am I still ahead, or am I behind?"

Klein said his formulation of hydrogen doesn't require altering an engine. And his electrolyzer cost about 70 cents an hour to operate, which he considers a bargain.
Klein said his method for introducing hydrogen into a vehicle to increase mileage is superior to hydrogen used in fuel cells.