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Merged "Iron-rich spheres" - scienctific explanation?

Oystein

Penultimate Amazing
Oystein
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Dec 9, 2009
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Hello to the more able among you! This goes out to those who already know what I am talking about by just reading the title of this thread:

What about them "iron-rich micro-spheres in the dust of WTC"?



You know: Jones, Harrit e.al. say that they found iron-rich micro-spheres after incinerating their famous red-grey chips.
J.R.Lee group found that about 6% of the dust found inside a building right next door to GZ was made up of iron, mostly in the form of tiny spheres.

I understand that micro-spheres form when the material cools from liquid to solid. So to me, the layman, it appears reasonable to say that iron-rich micro-spheres had a temperature above their melting point just before they formed. Jones and other truthers interprete this as evidence that fires must have burned that heated (macroscopic amounts of) steel above the melting point of steel - which most of us would consider highly unlikely from uncontrolled hydrocarbon fires.

I understand that such microspheres were certainly formed during clean-up, when steel was cut with blow-torches and mechanically. But I doubt that this process would deposit large amounts of such spheres to locations away from GZ.

It seems to me that most of these spheres must either have formed during the fires, or been present even before 9/11 and released during the collapses.

My questions thus are:
  • What do we know about this already?
  • Can ironspheres form during "normal" fires, and if so, how?
  • Did Jones and Harrit really find ironspheres, and did they really form when they burned their chips?
  • How many such spheres are already contained in building materials, such as concrete?
 
Quick caveat: the spheres are described as "iron-rich", not "iron". This means that they could be, for example, compounds of iron which melt at much lower temperatures, including the iron-sulphur eutectic observed in corrosion of steel from WTC7. Describing them as "iron spheres" is equivalent to accepting a conspiracist interpretation which is not supported by the evidence.

Dave
 
Flyash. Paint plus rust. Old buildings. Friction.

The truther study has not been truly independently verified. As a matter of fact, when a fellow doubter, henri co (a user here) tried to verify it, his dust sample mysteriouslycontained none of the alleged thermite chips.

TAM:)
 
Dave Rogers said:
Quick caveat: the spheres are described as "iron-rich", not "iron". This means that they could be, for example, compounds of iron which melt at much lower temperatures, including the iron-sulphur eutectic observed in corrosion of steel from WTC7. Describing them as "iron spheres" is equivalent to accepting a conspiracist interpretation which is not supported by the evidence.

Dave
Click to expand...

Sure. We are not talking about pure iron, so the textbook melting point of iron does not necessarily apply.
But the minimum melting point of an "ideal" eutectic does neither.
Eutectic corrosion is a slow process that would hardly contribute much to the dust clouds created by the collapses.

Look at the RJ LeeGroup Report:
Damage Assessment 130 Liberty Street Property - WTC Dust Signature Report

Just searching for "sphere" I find the following references:
Page 16
2.3.5 Heat affected particulate and combustion products

Particles that either were formed as a consequence of high temperature or
were modified by exposure to high temperature are important WTC Dust
Markers for WTC Dust. Fires that were a part of the WTC Event produced
combustion-modified products that traveled with other components of WTC
Dust. Considering the high temperatures reached during the destruction of
the WTC, the following three types of combustion products would be
expected to be present in WTC Dust. These products are:
• Vesicular carbonaceous particles primarily from plastics
• Iron-rich spheres from iron-bearing building components or contents
• High temperature aluminosilicate from building materials
Click to expand...

Page 24:
Particle Type | Mean of Composition (%)
...
Fe Sphere | 5.87
Click to expand...

So they tell me that "Iron-rich spheres from iron-bearing building components or contents" are expected combustion products, "(C)onsidering the high temperatures reached during the destruction of the WTC".
They don't tell me the process. And that is what I want to learn: Why is it excpected to find "Iron-rich spheres from iron-bearing building components or contents"? Is that normal after office fires? Or do they underrstand the physical and chemical processes, but don't bother to tell me?



But ok, I'll be carefull and talk about iron-rich spheres. I still want to know what they are, how they form, etc.
 
What I find most interesting abou the RJLee report is their statements that the "iron rich microspheres" were "expected byproducts" of the fires.

How can they be "expected to be present in WTC Dust" of an ordinary office fire?

When I point this out to twoofs who datamine it, they handwave it away.

If they were "expected to be present in WTC Dust" that means one of a couple of things.
1. that in office fires finding "iron rich microspheres" is expected
2. they were in on it and wrote a paper and thought it woudl get through.

(I know which one I believe)

I have written to them to ask about the phrase and the terms, but they never wrote back. I have a feeling that they think I may be a twoof. It is too bad really, because if they would clarify the "why" finding "iron rich microspheres" are an "expected to be present in WTC Dust" it would clear up a lot of twoof nonsense.... (but then again twoofs would ignore it)
 
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T.A.M. said:
Flyash. Paint plus rust. Old buildings. Friction.
Click to expand...

Ok. These are tag words. Now what are the processes here? How and when do iron-rich spheres form in flyash, paint plus rust, old buildings and friction? How much would we expect?

T.A.M. said:
The truther study has not been truly independently verified. As a matter of fact, when a fellow doubter, henri co (a user here) tried to verify it, his dust sample mysteriouslycontained none of the alleged thermite chips.

TAM:)
Click to expand...

The RJ LeeGroup did not do a truther study. The made an assessment of the contamination of a building for the benefit of its owner.

The Harrit and Jones paper is bunk, I know that, but they did do something, and apparently they faithfully showed their images and data, no tampering there. Only their interpretation is biased and very stupid, and their method bad.
So did they really detect iron-rich spheres? Or is that another case of inept interpretation of their data? And if they really detected iron-rich spheres, when and how did they form? Can we rule out they formed when the paint chips burned?
 
Dave Rogers said:
Yes, but eutectic corrosion is just a single example of the formation of a eutectic; it's far from the only way eutectics can be formed and observed.

Dave
Click to expand...

You seem to be hinting at a theory here, which may look like this (abbreviated):

a1) Prior to 9/11, eutectics (what kind?) had formed (how? how much)) on iron and steel (which? )in the towers.
OR
a2) During the fires, eutectics had formed (how? how much)) on iron and steel (which? )in the towers.
b) Where the fires got hot enough (which temperature?), the eutectics melted
c) After cool-down, the melted eutected solidified to spheres

Correct so far? Some blanks to be filled in.
 
TruthersLie said:
...if they would clarify the "why" finding "iron rich microspheres" are an "expected to be present in WTC Dust" it would clear up a lot of twoof nonsense.... (but then again twoofs would ignore it)
Click to expand...

That is exactly the aim of this thread! :)
 
Oystein said:
The RJ LeeGroup did not do a truther study. The made an assessment of the contamination of a building for the benefit of its owner.
Click to expand...
YOu misunderstood. He was talking about the nanothermite bunk in bentham.

The Harrit and Jones paper is bunk, I know that, but they did do something, and apparently they faithfully showed their images and data, no tampering there. Only their interpretation is biased and very stupid, and their method bad.
So did they really detect iron-rich spheres? Or is that another case of inept interpretation of their data? And if they really detected iron-rich spheres, when and how did they form? Can we rule out they formed when the paint chips burned?
Click to expand...

I think we need to have them complete their experiment again and rule out the 20 methodological errors (3 of them major) and then examine the results again.
 
Oystein:

1. We have to take Jones et al word that the iron microspheres were not there before they ognited the chips.

2. I was not talking about the Lee paper. That paper, as you know, did not use Jones samples.

3. Flyash, iirc is a common component of concrete. Rust and paint, well that very well could be their chips, and you know what rust is made from...

4. Friction....well falling steel, hitting the ground, hitting off other steel. I am guessing sparks, and probably iron rich spheres might be produced.

I am not an expert in any of these fields, so the above are just my thougts on the matter.

TAM:)
 
Welding slag

Spandrel plates tieing beams together in exterior wall welded on. Also imagine in building that size lot of other things welded

When was sample taken?

Iron workers with torches and "burning bars" (thermic lances) spent weeks cutting steel to remove it - plenty of slag from these operations flying around

Without "providence" - where and when sample taken an analysis is useless.....

Truthers like to complaint that site was not examined according to CSI standards then try to claim these samples as proof.....
 
I doubt that they're actually byproducts of the fire to begin with. As I've said in the past, the RJ Lee report was written before the NIST study came out. Heck, if I remember correctly, it was written before the NIST report was even funded.

Anyway, given the composition of the spheres that Jones surveyed, I think it's quite reasonable and very well supported that the spheres were there as a normal byproduct of concrete manufacture, and their higher incidence over background is explained simply by the fact that the towers collapsed and fractured/broke apart large amounts of concrete, thus releasing otherwise bound and contained spheres into the atmosphere.

Would it be the only source? Almost certainly not; such spheroids would be ubiquitous in any area with modern construction. I once mused on the possibility of such spheres being produced by welding during the construction of the towers; while I'd rate my own thesis as little more than a minor contributing source, it's still a very possible one. And there are others; as has been noted in other sources, any iron friction surface can indeed produce such spheroids, and over time, those could indeed build up and deposit on the towers. Think of brakes, iron block engines emitting spheres in exhaust, ditto marine engines in the harbor, construction equipment for any projects anywhere near Manhattan, etc. All of those would also be very minor contributors relative to what would've been contained in the concrete, but on the other hand, the towers stood for decades. You can't tell me that there wasn't some rate of deposit from the environment.

Anyway, there is indeed a mundane explanation for where the spheres would've come from. But again, I think the ultimate "scientific" argument comes from Dr. Frank Greening (first link above): He tells us to look at McCrone's "Particle Atlas", pp 760 to 780, and note the EDX spectra for fly ash. They happen to match the EDX for the spheres Jones studied. And as Greening noted, fly ash would be a component of concrete. It doesn't get any more solid than that.
 
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TruthersLie said:
What I find most interesting abou the RJLee report is their statements that the "iron rich microspheres" were "expected byproducts" of the fires.

How can they be "expected to be present in WTC Dust" of an ordinary office fire?

When I point this out to twoofs who datamine it, they handwave it away.
Click to expand...

Again, I think that's missing something; the RJ Lee group was working with the FEMA hypothesis at the time. That's almost certainly why they wrote what they did. Recall: In the days after the collapse, not even researchers thought anything about the fires being extremely high, steel-meltingly high even. It's the study in the aftermath that showed they weren't, and forced new hypotheses to be developed, but that initial mindset was the one the RJ Lee group was working within. They almost certainly picked up on the initial musings and simply ran with it. So in short, I don't think they considered the Twin Towers to be ordinary office fires.

TruthersLie said:
If they were "expected to be present in WTC Dust" that means one of a couple of things.
1. that in office fires finding "iron rich microspheres" is expected
2. they were in on it and wrote a paper and thought it woudl get through.

(I know which one I believe)

I have written to them to ask about the phrase and the terms, but they never wrote back. I have a feeling that they think I may be a twoof. It is too bad really, because if they would clarify the "why" finding "iron rich microspheres" are an "expected to be present in WTC Dust" it would clear up a lot of twoof nonsense.... (but then again twoofs would ignore it)
Click to expand...

It would indeed be nice if they confirmed what they were thinking, true. I think that the ubiquity of spheres in modern urbanized environment is what they were referring to - recall, they also noted there was a background level present that had nothing to do with the towers collapse, and it's not a stretch to conclude that the higher post-collapse levels were simply due to liberation from enclosed structures - but I'd sorely like to see them acknowledge this, or tell me I'm wrong and explain their statement.

Meh... in the end, it's icing on the cake. Nice, but not actually necessary.
 
Some of it is probably from welding fume. Note that many are rich in silicon. That would be a naturasl result of burning red rimer with a high content of kaolin or diatomaceous earth and iron oxice while wleding. Grinding with an emery wheel also produces such spheres. (Those pretty sparks are molten iron and whatever contamineants are caught up with them. You really never get all of them out of a building no matter how well you sweep and vacuum.

Some of them undoubtedly came in from the foundry with the steel. Foundries are dusty places. If I work a day at the Atlas Foundry, I cough up metallic dust for a day or two after. Somewhere around here we have a picture of primer peeling off of a piece of steel exposing metal spherees that were painted over.

Someone in another thread mentions brakes on elevators containing materials whch produce metal spheres.

Copy machine toner is iron-based, and there may be iron in carbonless copy paper.

I am still trying to figure out why anyone expects thermite to contain silicon in such quanties as the twoofers think it would.
Most of the spheres contain at least a bit of it.
 
Formation Processes of Hollow Microspheres in the Fly Ash from Electric Power Stations.

I'm opening up a whole can of worms with that, but there you go truthers will inevitably not understand it and start picking data out to support their crazy theories, but I think that the paper goes some way to answering your question.

picture.php
 
Iron

Hi, There are many sources of iron in an office building. Paper clips, Ball point pins, staples, desks, chairs.belt buckles, blah blah blah
 
Oystein said:
Sure. We are not talking about pure iron, so the textbook melting point of iron does not necessarily apply.
But the minimum melting point of an "ideal" eutectic does neither.
Eutectic corrosion is a slow process that would hardly contribute much to the dust clouds created by the collapses.

Look at the RJ LeeGroup Report:
Damage Assessment 130 Liberty Street Property - WTC Dust Signature Report

Just searching for "sphere" I find the following references:
Page 16


Page 24:


So they tell me that "Iron-rich spheres from iron-bearing building components or contents" are expected combustion products, "(C)onsidering the high temperatures reached during the destruction of the WTC".
They don't tell me the process. And that is what I want to learn: Why is it excpected to find "Iron-rich spheres from iron-bearing building components or contents"? Is that normal after office fires? Or do they underrstand the physical and chemical processes, but don't bother to tell me?



But ok, I'll be carefull and talk about iron-rich spheres. I still want to know what they are, how they form, etc.
Click to expand...

I've thought that some of the spheres might have formed from the burning of iron within the dust. Iron dust is flammable at about 430C. Smaller bits of iron like will also burn and or oxidize depending on the size of the piece and amount of oxygen.

Here is one example of steel wool burning.
http://www.popsci.com/node/9344
 
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Iron microspheres typically form a portion of fly ash produced in coal power plants where the temperature is around 1400 C. As fly ash is a component in concrete, and the iron rich materials don't readily react, any pulverization of concrete materials is going to release them.

Furthermore, iron microspheres are a very common component of dust, especially in an urban environment.

But more to the point in the OP, what can be determined about thermite being used to destroy a building from the iron microsphere content? Absolutely nothing. We know that iron microspheres are a common component of dust and ash. That means the question is if the use of thermite will produce MORE iron microspheres, and without a suitable standard experiment (i.e., one where two buildings of similar size and composition are destroyed, one with thermite, one without), nothing can be shown from the presence of these spheres.
 
Iron

Hi, By mass the most common element is iron (35% of the earth)
Each year nearly 40,000 tons of cosmic dust fall to Earth from outer space.
 
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