Yes, I meant that video and the time stamp is here:
https://youtu.be/h1VmaCl4HwU?t=42m57s
There Basile says that there are no spherules in the red/grey chips before the reaction but they are found first after the reaction. I think Harrit meant that.
I agree that these spherules weren't in the red/grey chips before the reaction and thus must have formed during the experiment.
You speculate that "
the reaction" is the cause for the formation, and you speculate that Harrit speculates even further that "
the reaction" must have been a thermite reaction, since "only" a thermite reaction .... well, whatever he meant.
But Basile presents evidence that "the reaction" must have been mostly hydrocarbon combustion, as there is so very little aluminium in the red layer, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much iron to account for the large droplets!
And Basile presents evidence that the droplets formed from the non-"enegetic" gray iron oxide layer - there's hadly even a need to assume that "
the reaction" played a significant role!
What Harrit, Basile and you all ignore is that, in the experiment, the gray layer was heated by external power (to 700 °C in Harrit et al, to an unknown, potentially higher or lower temperature in Basile's test), and none of you have ruled out that either this heating of the gray layer alone, or the heating of the gray layer in conjunction with the hydrocarbon reaction, caused the gray layer to deform to more roundish shapes.
Did you look carefully how the chip was "burning"? Have you ever burnt plastic? Hydrocarbons require outward oxygen for burning but the chip was "burning" inwardly – no oxygen was needed. I have burnt both gunpowder and plastic and have seen the difference.
Yes, I looked carefully.
The red layer was clearly exposed to oxygen, clearly showed signs of decomposition and gassing out, and clearly reacted with a flame outside of the chip - in other words, a reaction with ambient oxygen is a total certainty. If it had burnde "inwardly", you would not have had a chance to observe anything.
Harrit et al measured the energy output, and their higher values of 7.5 and 6 kJ/g are clear proof that something burned on ambient oxygen, that something was with utmost certainty the hydrocarbon binder, and that hydrocarbon combustion very clearly dominated the reaction enthalpy!
In Basile's chip, there was, according to his own data, less than 5% thermite (with 0%, the most plausible value, also being <5%). The significantly less than 0.2 kJ/g energy by mass of the red layer that <5% thermite could release can be shown to not even be sufficient to crack (decompose) a normal hydrocarbon binder.
The reaction shown in the video, nor the residue, cannot be explained
at all by a hypothetical thermite reaction, given the scarcity of thermite ingedients, and thus MUST be explained with the energy from the heating strip or from hydrocarbon combustion.
Unless you want to suggest that perhaps Basile's or Harrit's data are bad.
I referred to the figures in the OP and it was very easy to see what I meant. I usually don't give time stamps. I understand that many people are busy and don't necessarily have time to watch a video for one hour. But if they don't do it ever so they are not interested enough and it would have been in vain to give the time stamp. Videos most often are a logical whole and it is important to watch them in their entirety. I have time enough to watch 95 % of all the videos from the beginning to the end.
I am very familiar with the Basile presentation, I have watched the part where he talks about dust analysis several times, and have analysed his data, including the video of the burning chip #13, in much detail, years ago already. I wasn't sure what you were refering to, despite my knowing all figures in the Basile presentation as well as Harrit et al.
