'Molten' metal found at WTC 1, 2, and 7, 8 weeks after 9-11?

[Apollo20]

Jaydeehess:

Yes, some of the main decomposition products of PVC are benzene, toluene and xylene which are themselves combustible. Very high levels of benzene were detected at ground zero in the days and weeks after 9/11. The same is true of a lot of common plastics many of which release their monomer (among other products) on thermal decomposition. Thus polystyrene -> styrene; teflon -> tetrafluoroethylene, etc.

 

[DC]

im impressed, in a little over an hour youve not only overcome the language barrier but apparently become an expert on the subject, bravo

what? im still a total chemic layman, tbh, i have no clue about chemical processes.
and thanks to online tranlators like

http://dict.leo.org/

i quickly translated the words i did not understand.

then i googled some things , including alot things on wiki, witch is cool when you can switch from german to english and vice versa. (but always check if the stuff is backedup and also read alot of that.

then i also readed that

http://delta.ucdavis.edu/WTC.htm

and then that

http://delta.ucdavis.edu/WTC aersols ACS 2003.ppt

then i also checked some of those elements i didnt know theyr use for sure. like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium

and was then ashamed that i did not remember that, cause i learned one of its use already in school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintering

then i ate a chicken sandwish....

 

[Evilgiraffe]

Would not some of the breakdown gasses of the PVC also be flammable when exposed to oxygen?

Very probably... PVC is just another hydrocarbon with some chlorine in it. If you start cracking up large hydrocarbons into smaller units you get highly flammable fuels.

Large oil companies do this day in, day out for fun.... and PROFIT!

It reminds me of the production of charcoal. Pile up a lot of wood and light it on fire but smother the pile with clay limiting the oxygen. The result is a fuel that burns slower, and IIRC, hotter than wood.

I think the production of charcoal essentially involves removal of all water from the wood and partial pyrolysis of the remaining material. This will allow it to burn hotter, since the water is already gone and can't absorb any of the heat of combustion in boiling off.

 

[DC]

Dictator Cheney:

Yes, pyrolysis and combustion of plastics can occur more or less simultaneously depending on the oxygen supply. Either way hydrochloric acid gas is released at temperatures above only about 300 deg C.

As for other examples of this sort of process there was a nasty fire about 10 years ago at a plastics recycling plant called Plastimet in Hamilton, Canada, near where I live. It released a huge cloud of noxious gas and smoke for about a week and continued to smolder for days thereafter. The plastics were not buried in a pile of rubble however.

But there are plenty of other reactions that could have kept things cooking in the WTC rubble pile. For example, iron (i.e. structural steel) reacts rapidly with water (steam) at temps above 400 deg C:

3Fe + 4H2O = Fe3O4 + 4H2.

One kg of iron would release about 2 MJ of heat by this reaction, not to mention the additional heat that would be released from the subsequent reaction of hydrogen.

Al, which was plentiful in the rubble pile, also reacts with hot water at high pH releasing hydrogen.

http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCEsoft/CCA/CCA3/MAIN/STEAM/PAGE1.HTM

something like that?

 

[GlennB]

Al, which was plentiful in the rubble pile, also reacts with hot water at high pH releasing hydrogen.

And with cement ?

 

[CHF]

Has anyone from the TM ever given an estimate on how much thermite/mate was used to take down the WTC buildings and keep steel in a liquid state for weeks on end?

 

[T.A.M.]

Estimate = BCL (Big Crap Load).

TAM

 

[phunk]

I don't think any amount of thermite will burn for weeks if it's in 1 big pile. Just divide the propogation rate of a thermite burn (anyone know that?) by the width of the pile, and that's how long it'll take for the whole thing to be burning at once. I don't know exactly how fast it burns, but I know it's a lot faster than the width of the rubble pile per several weeks.

The only way to get thermite to burn for weeks would be to arrange it in a pile that is very long in one dimension. Think of the old 'gunpowder leaking from a keg' gag you see in cartoons. How long would the trail of powder have to be for it to take weeks to burn?

 

[twinstead]

You'd think a big honkin' pile of thermite that large burning would create quite a spectacle. I wonder what the largest amount of thermite ever ignited at once was.

 

[DC]

i think it also depends on what thermite. there are so many diffrents.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

i think it also depends on what thermite. there are so many diffrents.

could you give us a rundown of the different kinds?

 

[DC]

could you give us a rundown of the different kinds?

im sure i dont know them all, i just found a few.

im not even sure if it can be called thermite or whatever

KClO3-boosted TiO2 thermite using a TiO2 : Al : KClO3 : CaF2 ratio of 100 : 75 : 50 : 40.

for example

 

[phunk]

i think it also depends on what thermite. there are so many diffrents.

Well keep in mind that the slower it burns, the lower the temperature will be. Thermite was proposed because it burns hot, if you take that heat and slow its release to several weeks instead of several seconds, how hot can it really get? You're back to the problem of needing a LOT of thermite to keep the pile hot for several weeks. And it would have to be slowly and continuously poured into the rubble to keep it burning, it can't be there from the beginning or it would all burn at once.

It's much more reasonable to assume the known fuel source, millions of pounds of building contents, is what kept the rubble pile hot. We know for a fact that existed, but have not seen any real evidence of thermite.

 

[DC]

Well keep in mind that the slower it burns, the lower the temperature will be. Thermite was proposed because it burns hot, if you take that heat and slow its release to several weeks instead of several seconds, how hot can it really get? Your back to the problem of needing a LOT of thermite to keep the pile hot for several weeks. And it would have to be slowly and continuously poured into the rubble to keep it burning, it can't be there from the beginning or it would all burn at once.

It's much more reasonable to assume the known fuel source, millions of pounds of building contents, is what kept the rubble pile hot. We know for a fact that existed, but have not seen any real evidence of thermite.

maybe the reaction was already done, the fires in the rubble was able to keep the product of the reaction relative molten? who knows.
would be interesting to have those once molten pools of metal.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

im sure i dont know them all, i just found a few.

im not even sure if it can be called thermite or whatever

KClO3-boosted TiO2 thermite using a TiO2 : Al : KClO3 : CaF2 ratio of 100 : 75 : 50 : 40.

for example

i guess you could call it thermite, if thermite is used in ageneral sense, any metal oxide can be combined with Al (or possibly other metals)

however the "standard" iron oxide + aluminum is used most often because IIRC it produces the most heat

 

[CHF]

im sure i dont know them all, i just found a few.

im not even sure if it can be called thermite or whatever

KClO3-boosted TiO2 thermite using a TiO2 : Al : KClO3 : CaF2 ratio of 100 : 75 : 50 : 40.

for example

How much thermite would have had to be used in order to produce what you claim happened at GZ?

Give me a number.

 

[DC]

i guess you could call it thermite, if thermite is used in ageneral sense, any metal oxide can be combined with Al (or possibly other metals)

however the "standard" iron oxide + aluminum is used most often because IIRC it produces the most heat

and aslong the thermal energy is not directed on the steel like in those devices, it seem not to be to effective in melting steel.

http://www.amazingrust.com/Experiments/how_to/Videos/Fe2O3/5/Thermite(Fe2O3)5[Best].wmv

 

[DC]

How much thermite would have had to be used in order to produce what you claim happened at GZ?

Give me a number.

what did i claim happened?

and i dont know how much thermite it would need to destroy all the steel columns on 2 floors.
i dont even know if such thermite devices are working.

 

[stateofgrace]

what did i claim happened?

and i dont know how much thermite it would need to destroy all the steel columns on 2 floors.
i dont even know if such thermite devices are working.

IF you are concerned about how much thermite your imaginary thermite devices would need to destroy all the steel columns on two floors of the each WTC, what is stopping you from working it out for yourself?

Once you have done so maybe you can the work out, all by yourself, how your imaginary amount of thermite contributed to motel metal weeks after the towers collapsed.

 

[PhantomWolf]

maybe the reaction was already done, the fires in the rubble was able to keep the product of the reaction relative molten? who knows.
would be interesting to have those once molten pools of metal.

But here you once more run into the issue that if the fires in the piles were hot enough to keep motlen metal molten, then they were hot enough to create the molten metal in the first place, thus removing the need to invent the Therm*te to make it molten.