Mark Basile and his Search for the paint:
(excerpts from this discussion:
http://911blogger.com/node/20998)
Appearance of red chips:
"You know to look at them (red-gray chips), you'd almost, and I think some of the samples, you know, have been looked at, you would think that they were just basically something.... Kind of like a paint chip..almost. And I think that, you know, if I go through all the different samples that I've looked at and that... - You know I know he must have seen the same types of things - .. I think that there are actually little bits of paint in there..."
It seems that this guy is on the right track at that moment...
Thickness of red chips:
"Thickness of the red layer is.. They vary a little bit, but basically they're on the order of a few sheets of paper
(???), actually is... is the layer.. You know it's anywhere from like .. say then to thirty thousands in thickness."
Is seems that Mark Basile found red layers about 30 µm thick. This is a typical thickness of paint layers and, btw, it is in a good accordance with the thickness of "Laclede primer paint" (25 µm).
Concentration of red chips:
"I'm not sure what Steven if he quotes an actual percent. Uhm.. You know it's not a high percent. You know in my sample I'm down somewhere in the ... oh... It's below a tenth of a percent, it's .. you know.. it's probably somewhere in the 200 to 500 parts per million, that type of thing."
It seems that concentration of red-gray chips according to Mark Basile is somewhat lower (0.02-0.05 %) than that found by Harrit et al, but still in reasonable agreement with the expected concentration of Laclede paint chips in the dust (according to Oystein′s calculation).
Burning of red chips:
"George Corrette:
Now one of the things that we've heard; these kind of crude critiques of this study is: "Well all these red and gray chips, well how do you know they're just not paint chips". What would one expect with Sherman-Williams exterior coat paint if you were to do the exact same thing with this: take those paint chips, put them on this quarter inch resistance heater that you have, and ignite it if you will, heat it up to a point of ignition...uhm...T..
Mark Basile:
Yeah cause, you know, things will burn..
George Corrette:
..That's right..
Mark Basile:
If you heat them up to their ignition temperature, they will burn. Well I would expect it to burn, and there would be an energy release, but it would be, you know, of a relatively, I'll call mild, like if you burn wood in a fire."
It seems that Mark Basile knows that "things", like some paints, burn. He even showed us a video of burning of one red chip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1TwVACENAo which looks, e.g., like ignition of some wood (or paint) chip - comparatively slow burning and pale flame...His own comment: “It is not overall spectacular but something happened there.”
_______________________________________
Well, although Mark Basile′s own findings and thoughts are fully consistent with paint hypothesis, he is still sure enough that he studied nanoth....te.
Why?
Since he thinks that this poor little pale flame belonged to thermitic reaction able to produce “molten iron” .
And where is the proof for this claim?
I see only one such “proof” in his lecture, time 46:57: XEDS of some droplet formed during burning of the chip "Lucky Thirteen". Droplet is really richer in iron (53 % of Fe) in comparison with unburned chip, but there is also a lot of oxygen (21 %) and some carbon (8 %), aluminum (5 %) and silicon (8 %).
According to Basile′s table, weight ratio Fe/O is 53/21 = 2,52.
Weight ratio between Fe and O in iron(III) oxide, Fe2O3, is (2x55)/(3x16) = 2.3.
So this droplet is by no means droplet of “molten iron”, but just droplet of iron oxide contaminated mostly with aluminum,silicon and carbon (from the polymeric binder).
Again: Is Basile lying intentionally? (He is a chemical engineer, I think… )
