Clean machines: ‘Green’ process removes carbon buildup

METROPOLIS, Ill. — An economic and environmentally friendly way to clean carbon buildup in engines has finally made its way across the pond.

HHO Carbon Clean Systems was founded by Jared English in June 2020. The system uses hydrogen to clean carbon out of any internal gasoline or diesel combustion engine.

The “green” process is unique to the United States, but has been used in Europe and Australia for many years due to the widespread use of diesel passenger vehicles and emission laws.

“About every shop in Europe has a hydrogen carbon cleaning machines and there are hundreds of companies that have mobile services in Europe and Australian. There was a huge demand when they started putting particulate filters on the diesels because every car had one on it. The hydrogen carbon cleaning business boomed over there,” English said.

How It Works

HHO Carbon Clean Systems uses distilled water and electrolysis to produce oxyhydrogen gas that is then introduced into the air intake while the engine is running. The reaction during the combustion causes phase change in carbon deposit, returning the deposits to a gaseous state which is then expelled through the exhaust system.

The process will removed carbon from internal engine components, including pistons, cylinders, turbos, exhaust gas recirculation valves, catalytic converters and diesel particulate filters.

“We’re vaporizing the carbon and it leaves the engine as a gas. There’s no black smoke coming out of the exhaust. The most you’ll see out of the exhaust is some blackish condensation dripping out of the exhaust,” English explained.

No harsh chemical detergents or solvents are used during the hydrogen carbon cleaning procedure.

Beyond the benefits of engine carbon removal, English said the system also restores fuel mileage and performance, lowers emissions, prevents damage to expensive engine components and decreases downtime due to costly repairs.

Mobile Service

A mobile unit delivers the service to the where it’s needed on a farm, business or individual home.

“We have a hydrogen generator in a van and use a Honda 7500 generator to power the machine,” English said. “Our biggest sector over the last year has probably been the agriculture industry because we have so many of them around here.”

“Not only are there hundreds of small farms just here in Massac County, but then each small farm may have 20, 25, 30 individual pieces of equipment with engines. Some of the equipment needs some performance and efficiency enhancement after 20 years or whatever. There are years of carbon built up on their machines,” said Cord Koch, director of marketing and franchise development.

“We’re able to get another five, 10 or however many years to keep them going. At the same time, if we get 10, 15 or 20 pieces of equipment all in the same places, that’s obviously a good deal for us, as well.”

“Our farming clients have called us back to do this a second time. We did their engines in the fall before harvest and now we’re doing them in the spring before planting starts,” English said.

The company’s studies thus far have found a 12% decrease in equipment downtime after removing carbon.

“If you have to shut your tractor down during planting or your combine is down while you’re harvesting you lose a week of prime conditions in farming to get it done,” English continued.

“I grew up on a farm that never had a tractor that wasn’t 20 years old. I know how backbreaking that can be. If we can keep them going for a full season that, in and of itself, is huge economically.”

HHO Carbon Clean Systems is also serving the over-the-road trucking industry and a recent example is A&W Trucking.

“We did all 11 of their trucks and one month later they called us back and wanted us to do it twice a year or more because it saved 9% on fuel,” English noted.

“We wanted to dive into the science of it. We wanted to know what we were changing, how are we doing this, we know it is working. What it boils down to on diesel engines is we clean the variable geometry turbos spotless so they get all the boost back. That means the engine is running more efficiently, better fuel mileage. The result of an efficient running engine on a diesel is now we’re keeping the diesel particulate filters clean.

“It can be used in any engine. We did a fleet of lawnmowers yesterday morning.”

Next Step

The southern Illinois company is not even a year old, but is growing quickly with a franchise opening in Evansville, Indiana, and another pending in western Kentucky. The goal is to have 10 franchise areas sold by the end of 2021.

“We’re not in a great big hurry like some companies. We’re not hiring franchise brokers. We have a slow growth plan because we want to find the right people. We don’t want to just flood the market and sell these to whoever wants to do it just because they have the money,” English said.

“We started this company from scratch. It grew really fast and gives us the opportunity to step back and pick the right people, pick the right location and work with the right companies.”

The Beginning

Perseverance and resilience come to mind when listening to English’s story.

After graduating from Nashville Auto Diesel College with a degree in automotive and diesel technology at 23 years old, English founded A-1 Automotive in 2004 and retrofitted an old tire shop that was recently used as a florist shop.

Operating A-1 for the next decade and a half, through national economic downturns and the closing of local factories, he shaped his business model accordingly and A-1 thrived even in the bleakest of times.

Then came the morning of Oct. 17, 2018, when English awoke to calls that the business he had built for the previous 14 years was ablaze and would soon be a complete loss.

Already having been an adjunct professor at Shawnee Community College, he took the opportunity to teach full-time and work from his home garage while insurance companies sorted out what would come of A-1.

It was during this period that he began to seriously research better solutions for the common service issues caused by carbon buildup that plagued the automotive industry.

Late nights, research and phone calls eventually led to procuring, testing and experimenting with Hydrogen Carbon Cleaning equipment in the home garage that was now functioning as A-1.

“I ran across a couple of articles on hydrogen carbon cleaning that was being used in Europe. I ended up getting my hands on some equipment. The equipment arrived at my shop and we started doing testing, emissions testing and testing it on any kind of equipment, vehicle, engine we could find to fine-tune the process. The results were way better than I had originally hoped for,” English said.

A-1 Automotive was rebuilt at its original location and reopened in March 2020 as the pandemic hit, but English went full steam ahead to finalize plans for his hydrogen carbon cleaning business.

The carbon cleaning business is one of only two operating in the United States. The other, CarbonTex USA, is based in Stuart, Florida.

“The carbon cleaning system is built overseas because there is no one in the United States that makes it. My company is a sole distributor in North America for the equipment that is built,” English said.

“We have an agreement with the company in Europe and they’re built to our specifications. We’re constantly fine-tuning and changing the machines if we see something that we need to change. That’s something we do on a daily basis.”