Debunked: Iron Microspheres in 9/11 WTC Dust as Evidence for Thermite

Taking the biggest peak, 22 W/g over 10 seconds, roughly triangular curve, so around 100 to 120 Joules per gram (Watts = Joules/Second)? Compare to say TNT at 4000 J/g? (and apparently regular thermite has similar energy content: http://www.nakka-rocketry.net/thermites.html)

So you've got something releasing 1/40th the amount of energy of Thermite, slowly?

What am I missing?
 
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Taking the biggest peak, 22 W/g over 10 seconds, roughly triangular curve, so around 100 to 120 Joules per gram (Watts = Joules/Second)? Compare to say TNT at 4000 J/g? (and apparently regular thermite has similar energy content: http://www.nakka-rocketry.net/thermites.html)

So you've got something releasing 1/40th the amount of energy of Thermite, slowly?

What am I missing?

If you are sure. Do your own tests. Like Mohr and Millette did with funds raised by JREF. Write a paper setting out your thesis. Get it peer reviewed and publish. I will then compare your own conclusion with Harrit's.
 
Oh wait, ten minutes, not ten seconds! Doh. So the figures do actually make sense (in context)
 
There was indeed aluminum. It wasn't elemental Al, true, but if it explodes, what difference does it make?
It doesn't explode. It's CLAY. Clay and red iron oxide will never explode. You're rediscovering the iron age, and you need to supply charcoal or coal, for you're smelting iron, and you're needing fuel.

It's unfounded and it's not science.
I'm sure any bronze age foundry man would disagree with you.

Not only did they not replicate the study but they have also failed to achieve peer review and be in a position to publish their findings. Since then the people commissioning that study ( JREF ) have kept a very low profile on this subject.
Like Harritt, then.

And the remark from Jazzy - " Because they knew it wasn't reactive."- reminds me of NIST's classic line when asked why they didn't test for energetic material - " because we knew there was none there ". Science?
It seems you're both wondering...

Well, yes, it's science. It's the smelting of iron using the resin binder as the reducing agent.

Without elemental aluminum it isn't thermite. Thermite is all about burning pure aluminum in metallic oxides.

The iron oxide can be reduced by the binder to iron.

But in neither case is it anything to do with thermite, and you've just demonstrated a complete ignorance of the simplest chemistry.

It's obvious from the proportions of each material found in the analysis, and the presence of CLAY, we aren't looking at a highly reactive material.

Clay bombs...
 
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Taking the biggest peak, 22 W/g over 10 seconds, roughly triangular curve, so around 100 to 120 Joules per gram (Watts = Joules/Second)? Compare to say TNT at 4000 J/g? (and apparently regular thermite has similar energy content: http://www.nakka-rocketry.net/thermites.html)

So you've got something releasing 1/40th the amount of energy of Thermite, slowly?

What am I missing?

So I was missing it was ten minutes, not ten seconds. Which would make my guesstimate 6-7Kj/g.
So we've got a really slow high energy reaction? What's going on here?
 
There was indeed aluminum. It wasn't elemental Al, true, but if it explodes, what difference does it make?
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It's unfounded and it's not science.

Because if it isn't elemental Al then it isn't thermite, and claiming it IS thermite is unfounded and not science - since you like to put it that way.

Dusts containing aluminium can explode - including powdered aluminium oxide and even clay. but they are not "explosives" in defined meaning of the word", and are certainly not thermite.
 
Elemental aluminum. Aluminum the metal. They did not find any.

Sorry? I thought that you said that you had read the Harrit paper.

Page 1/25 of the pdf - Quote -

" The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy
dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately
100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation
of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum
are intimately mixed in the red material."

Page 6/25 of the pdf - Quote -

"X-ray energy-dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS) analyses of both the red and gray layers from cross sections prepared from the four dust samples were performed and representative
spectra are shown in Figs. (6, 7). The four spectra in Fig. (6) indicate that the gray layers are consistently characterized
by high iron and oxygen content including a smaller amount of carbon. The chemical signatures found in the red layers
are also quite consistent (Fig. 7), each showing the presence
of aluminum (Al),
silicon (Si), iron (Fe) and oxygen (O), and a significant carbon (C) peak as well."

This is quite apart from numerous charts showing the Al presence.

Why do you make the claim that they didn't find Al ?
 
Sorry? I thought that you said that you had read the Harrit paper.

Page 1/25 of the pdf - Quote -

" The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy
dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately
100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation
of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum
are intimately mixed in the red material."

Page 6/25 of the pdf - Quote -

"X-ray energy-dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS) analyses of both the red and gray layers from cross sections prepared from the four dust samples were performed and representative
spectra are shown in Figs. (6, 7). The four spectra in Fig. (6) indicate that the gray layers are consistently characterized
by high iron and oxygen content including a smaller amount of carbon. The chemical signatures found in the red layers
are also quite consistent (Fig. 7), each showing the presence
of aluminum (Al),
silicon (Si), iron (Fe) and oxygen (O), and a significant carbon (C) peak as well."

This is quite apart from numerous charts showing the Al presence.

Why do you make the claim that they didn't find Al ?

Your second quote there has nothing to do with elemental aluminum.

The first quote is a somewhat dubious inference based on a supposition of what would happen to nano-aluminum in MEK. They did not actually FIND any elemental aluminum.
 
What, so you are suggesting there was non-elemental non-nano particles of some compound of aluminum, in a reactive form?

That's not nano thermite then, is it.

It makes not a wit of difference what you call it. It's some kind of explosive. I'm not sure why it exploded, but it did according to the Harrit team. Shall we call it "strange red-gray explosive stuff"? SRGES.

Mick West said:
How much energy did the "explosion" produce? What was the energy density?

That's a good question. I don't know exactly.
 
They did not actually FIND any elemental aluminum.

Harrit seemed to think so. More to the point, his instruments seemed to think so.

And no duplication of his work has been carried out to enable you to make the claim that Al wasn't found.

More compelling is the logic that he knew that if he was making a false claim then it would be very easy for a duplicated trial to prove him wrong, and make his entire paper invalid. That hasn't happened. But we do know that attempts have been made to make his paper invalid. Why have they been unable to do that ? Could it be that his results were found to be accurate?

Surely, the simple announcement that no Al was found would be easy to be peer reviewed without going any further, as that peer reviewed result alone would negate the entire paper. Why didn't that happen ?

Simply handwaving at the Al issue doesn't prove your point.
 
There's no strong evidence that elemental aluminum was present.

Do you know what elemental aluminum is? What's an example of non-elemental aluminum?
 
There's no strong evidence that elemental aluminum was present.

Do you know what elemental aluminum is? What's an example of non-elemental aluminum?

I didn't come here for a chemistry lesson, but my understanding is that elemental Al is almost never found because of its strong affinity to bind with oxygen and is far more usually found in silicates or oxides.

Despite that, Harrit et al said on page 12/25 of the pdf :-

"Thus, while some of the aluminum may be oxidized, there is insufficient oxygen present to account for all of the aluminum; some of the aluminum must therefore exist in elemental form in the red material"

That statement has not been challenged by a peer reviewed paper either.

.
 
I didn't come here for a chemistry lesson, but my understanding is that elemental Al is almost never found because of its strong affinity to bind with oxygen and is far more usually found in silicates or oxides.

That has nothing to do with anything (except, perhaps, chemtrails). Elemental aluminum is found all over the place in buildings.

You know the difference between an element and a compound? Aluminum, the metal, is an element. Aluminum oxide is a compound. Finding aluminum in a substance via spectroscopy does not tell you if it's in elemental form or in compound form. Harrit infers there is some elemental aluminum from the peak ratios, but it's not really clear that this is correct, nor how evenly this applies to all the samples, nor if it's what you'd expect for "nanothermite"
 
Right now to for me the bigger question is what is going in the DSC? Why is the energy release over then minutes?
 
.... Elemental aluminum is found all over the place in buildings.

You know the difference between an element and a compound? Aluminum, the metal, is an element. Aluminum oxide is a compound. Finding aluminum in a substance via spectroscopy does not tell you if it's in elemental form or in compound form. Harrit infers there is some elemental aluminum from the peak ratios, but it's not really clear that this is correct, nor how evenly this applies to all the samples, nor if it's what you'd expect for "nanothermite"

Why is it not "clear that this is correct"? What does that mean? Why wouldn't it apply to all the samples? Because they didn't soak all the samples in MEK?

Again, I doubt your doubt.
 
Why is it not "clear that this is correct"? What does that mean? Why wouldn't it apply to all the samples? Because they didn't soak all the samples in MEK?

Again, I doubt your doubt.

It means it's not clear to me. I don't feel like I have enough information to determine it's correct.
 
What's going on there?

Another bit of light bedtime reading here :- http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA320678

Click the PDF URL there.

Seems to me that the same 10C per min regime was applied to tests on various conventional explosives.( Page 17/36 of that pdf. ) The curves for many explosives tested appear to be similar to Harrit's. But no-one suggests that Semtex takes ten minutes to explode. Perhaps your puzzlement is a result of lack of understanding of this equipment.
 
You have been considering the smelting of the iron oxide by the organic binder in the paint.

The apparatus is supplying the requisite heat energy.

Fe2O3 + n(CH2) > 2Fe + CO2 + H2O

The non-elemental aluminum is a constituent of the KAOLIN used as paint filler. It's inert for all intents and purposes.
 
At what temperature does that organic binder burn at? At what temperature does iron melt at ?
Approx 500 and 1500 degrees, temperature is an average measure of thermal vibrational energy, not its peak energy, and thus once in a while there will be sufficient energy for the reaction.

This is why the reaction is taking so much time.
 
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Approx 500 and 1500 degrees
.

First of all I would have expected you to mention the scale when quoting temperature figures. But hey ..........

Secondly, when you say - "You have been considering the smelting of the iron oxide by the organic binder in the paint." - you are re-opening the old 'woodburner stove melting' debate.

Do you really want to go down that road ?
 
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Another bit of light bedtime reading here :- http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA320678

Click the PDF URL there.

Seems to me that the same 10C per min regime was applied to tests on various conventional explosives.( Page 17/36 of that pdf. ) The curves for many explosives tested appear to be similar to Harrit's. But no-one suggests that Semtex takes ten minutes to explode. Perhaps your puzzlement is a result of lack of understanding of this equipment.

Quite obviously that is the cause of my puzzlement.

I'm still puzzled though. Is there really a ten minute long chemical reaction going on here? The paper you link to above talks about "decomposition" of the explosives (usually after they melt). Not so much about them exploding or burning.
 
Quite obviously that is the cause of my puzzlement.

I'm afraid that I am in the same boat as you. At a guess I could speculate that gradual heating, rather than a detonation device instantaneously igniting, has a different effect on the release of energy.

Don't you have an explosive expert as a Met member ? Named 'bomber' or similar. We could ask him.
 
First of all I would have expected you to mention the scale
[...]

Secondly, when you say - "You have been considering the smelting of the iron oxide by the organic binder in the paint." - you are re-opening the old 'woodburner stove melting' debate.
I think I mind if you liken a 'nano chip' to a wood-burning stove. Personally, what affronts me about that idea is the gross mismatch of scale and circumstances. At the scale of the wood stove, this would an oxide-to-metal scale. That's the way stoves normally are, aren't they? Please let's not get into stove technology...

Perhaps to circumvent your notion, it is quite easy to argue that the binder burns IN AIR down to the iron oxide particle.

In so doing, it turns up with the energy required to pull oxygen off the outside molecules of each chip. It is, after all, burning.

This process would gain marginally from the surface tension forces drawing the free iron atoms on the chip surface together in order to achieve a lower energy state.

Thermometers only measure average vibrational energy. Single energetic atoms or molecules aren't measured, but their presence is assured, and they have time on their side.
 
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[...]

But turning to your claim that organic material can consistently burn, in air, at a high enough temperature to melt iron in a steelframe building, on the grounds that it may be capable of doing that to an iron oxide particle in a crucible in a laboratory, is starting to appear like straw clutching.

[...]
 
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[...]

But turning to your claim that organic material can consistently burn, in air, at a high enough temperature to melt iron in a steelframe building, on the grounds that it may be capable of doing that to an iron oxide particle in a crucible in a laboratory, is starting to appear like straw clutching.

[...]

That's not what he claimed. If you want to say someone said something, then QUOTE THEM.
 
It means it's not clear to me. I don't feel like I have enough information to determine it's correct.

From pages 17-18

...there also exist regions where the aluminum is concentrated but where the oxygen may not accompany it commensurately. To confirm and to quantify these observations, XEDS spectra (subsequent plots) were acquired from specific regions of high Si, Al and Fe concentrations.... Focusing the electron beam on a region rich in silicon, located in Fig. (15e), we find silicon and oxygen and very little else (Fig. 16). Evidently the solvent has disrupted the matrix holding the various particles, allowing some migration and separation of the components. This is a significant result for it means that the aluminum and silicon are not bound chemically....
The next XEDS spectrum (Fig. 17) was acquired from a region that showed a high concentration of aluminum. Using a conventional quantification routine, it was found that the aluminum significantly exceeded the oxygen present (approximately a 3:1 ratio). Thus, while some of the aluminum may be oxidized, there is insufficient oxygen present to account for all of the aluminum; some of the aluminum must therefore exist in elemental form in the red material.
I misunderstood the results as well. We both stand corrected. There should be no doubt as to the existence of elemental Al in the red matrix--again, unless you are saying the Harrit team is fabricating results or there is something wrong with their method.

I know you aren't going to agree that there's elemental Al in the matrix. The only question now is: on what grounds are you now disputing the existence of elemental Al?
 
I don't think there's sufficiently strong empirical evidence of evenly distributed elemental aluminum. Finding a peak in one place with spot analysis might just mean they found a bit of dust. I'd like to see an analysis of the composition of the entire layer, or a much larger number of spot samples.

I'd also like to hear the opinions of active experts in the field as to the likely meaning of the published results.
 
Mick, are you disagreeing with a paper which you have not read?

No, I'm asking you what you mean by "It's not dust if the piece they found evenly distributed Al in the matrix was soaked in MEK for hours." which does not seem to make any sense.
 
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