Merged "Iron-rich spheres" - scienctific explanation?

[Oystein]

Eagle Eye miss Harrit same mistake.
Eagle Mouth silent until German Bee speak.

In all honesty, what I described about the graph in the Harrit paper was not as mistake, only a quirk, but one that illustrates how easily editing mistakes in such graphs could occur. The one slightly compressed graph had its scale slightly compressed as well, so all was fine.
The mistake in Jones's presentation was also a very minor slip - he labelled a peak "C" that should have been "Ca" - you see what happened. And I didn't catch that slip, Sunstealer or The Almond did, many moons ago.

 

[000063]

Insults notwithstanding, which are uncalled for even if richly deserved, no blaze of glory with this departure, only a fizzle, and maybe a faint "pop".

I'm not insulting him, I'm accusing him of intellectual dishonesty and poking specific holes in his logic. Note how he flat out ignores most of my posts over the last few pages, whether "insulting" him or not. If I have referred to him in a degrading manner, I don't think its been directed at him personally, but to other people, about him. Certainly not an insult-fest.

 

[LSSBB]

I'm not insulting him, I'm accusing him of intellectual dishonesty and poking specific holes in his logic. Note how he flat out ignores most of my posts over the last few pages, whether "insulting" him or not. If I have referred to him in a degrading manner, I don't think its been directed at him personally, but to other people, about him. Certainly not an insult-fest.

No offense meant, I had no particular care about whom he thought had insulted.

 

[tfk]

Oh ye of one sided imagination. What it the thermite were IN the columns?

Then there would be somewhere around 10,000 - 25,000 1 story column segments with plainly obvious, melted ends.

Number of hours that I've spent looking for them: ~4.
Number of ground zero photos that I've examined looking for melted ends: 100 - 200
Number that I've found to date: 0
___

Next baseless, erroneous speculation, please.

 

[Fly Poster]

It's been a long time commin'

Using the numbers from the British solid waste plant for the amount of bottom ash and the Korean numbers for the percentage of iron:

1 metric ton = 2205 pounds in

275 kg = 606 pounds bottom ash

4.85% = 29.4 pounds of iron per metric ton of solids.

What form is that in? Is it rough or spherical?

Dunno, I am a carpenter like you, also it's not my burden of proof.

 

[Fly Poster]

"1 metric ton = 2205 pounds in

275 kg = 606 pounds bottom ash

4.85% = 29.4 pounds of iron per metric ton of solids.

What form is that in? Is it rough or spherical? "


So you Haven't ruled it out then?

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Re Chris7: Let's give credit where credit is due. Only C7 noticed the mistake in the Chinese paper; I certainly didn't, and neither did anyone else. He's got an eagle eye and kudos to him for that.

You are right and Chris7 has my respect in this matter.

Btw, using "yahooing" instead of googling, I have just found this interesting and detailed (freely available) Russian paper on ferrospheres from fly ashes ("from 14 heat and electric power plants"). I am now lazy to read this all, but in introduction, the formation of ferrospheres is described roughly as a melting of FeO-CaO-MgO-SiO₂-Al₂O₃ complex.
Composition of spheres varied in the very wide range, see the paper.

 

[Christopher7]

"1 metric ton = 2205 pounds in

275 kg = 606 pounds bottom ash

4.85% = 29.4 pounds of iron per metric ton of solids.

What form is that in? Is it rough or spherical? "


So you Haven't ruled it out then?

No. Although solid waste is not the same as office contents, it's a better match than coal. Iron only made up ~5% of the bottom ash and from what I have read the iron may be largely combined with other elements so we need a more detailed analysis to see how much is "iron rich" and spherical.

Thanks to those who supplied data rather than childish insults and endless questions requiring speculation.

Ivan,
That paper is about coal fly ash and not really relevant to the question at hand. - Could some, most or all of the iron microspheres be from office contents burning in the fires before the collapse? An analysis of the bottom ash would give us some idea.

I have stated the case for the iron microspheres leaving with the smoke and challenged my opponents to justify their claiming they would not while saying that iron microspheres from the debris pile fires would float on the breeze.

 

[Christopher7]

Eagle Eye miss Harrit same mistake.
Eagle Mouth silent until German Bee speak.

Ug! Basque man speak with sharp tong.

 

[Ivan Kminek]

No. Although solid waste is not the same as office contents, it's a better match than coal. Iron only made up ~5% of the bottom ash and from what I have read the iron may be largely combined with other elements so we need a more detailed analysis to see how much is "iron rich" and spherical.

Thanks to those who supplied data rather than childish insults and endless questions requiring speculation.

Ivan,
That paper is about coal fly ash and not really relevant to the question at hand. - Could some, most or all of the iron microspheres be from office contents burning in the fires before the collapse? An analysis of the bottom ash would give us some idea.

I have stated the case for the iron microspheres leaving with the smoke and challenged my opponents to justify their claiming they would not while saying that iron microspheres from the debris pile fires would float on the breeze.

Chris7, using googling or "yahooing", I haven't be able so far to find anything really (closely) relevant, as for microspheres from large building/office fires etc. This is why asked Almond to provide us with some particular data/references/figures. But since he doesn't care very much about this matter, no real progress. Perhaps Myriad can also show us something (?).
But, what is really "closely relevant"? WTC fires (their initial phase) were more wild explosions than just "fires" (among others).
I think it is better to wait now for the results of the Jim Millette's study. If he finds ferrospheres in the WTC concrete, this material (fly ash in it) could be the main source of them and no real need to look elsewhere. I think

 

[Oystein]

I just read through what may have been the earliest comprehensive web post on Steven Jones's red-gray chips:
Announcing a discovery: Red/gray bi-layered chips in the WTC dust

I especially read through the comments, by Steven Jones and others, and found a few interesting facts on the "iron-rich spheres" from the WTC dust samples that Jones had analysed:

• "...WTC dust, generally with iron above the aluminum content and both above 10% (typically)? I'd like to see it. The iron content of these spheres (I have looked at hundreds of them now, in the WTC dust) is often above 20%..."
• "All of the iron-aluminum spheres I have found in the WTC dust show abundant OXYGEN. Often O is the principal element in the spheres."

So it would seem that the most abundant and "suspicious" spheres are actually mixed bags of oxides, with iron being a minor ingredient (often 10-20%), and apparently also Al, Si, K playing a large role, but oxygen above all!

Iron oxide is at least (Fe2O3) 70% by weight iron, 30% oxygen. Other oxides are 78:22 (FeO) or 72:28 (Fe3O4)
Aluminium oxide (Al2O3) is 53% Al, 47%O.
SiO2 is 54:46.
I think if spheres iron-rich and oxygen-poor enough to make a case for there to be at least some elemental iron, there should be more than 40% iron by weight in them (assuming 10% as a typical value for Si and Al), better yet >70%. I think if Jones had found a significant number of spheres with that much iron, he would no doubt have told us happily. Also, he vaguely quantifies ("generally", "often") iron contents above 10% and 20%, but makes no mention of contents above 30%. The fact that he did neither strongly suggests that iron content in these sphere is generally below 30% and all the iron in them must be thought of as fully oxidised.

Totally useless to be talking about the melting point of iron in that context.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

Thanks to those who supplied data rather than childish insults and endless questions requiring speculation.

Chris, your entire theory is just speculation. I'm not surprised you are glad other people are doing your work for you.........
As for childish insults simply reflect your childish claims......and questions?....you should welcome them as without the answers to them you have no case. Consider us your peer review

 

[leftysergeant]

• "...WTC dust, generally with iron above the aluminum content and both above 10% (typically)? I'd like to see it. The iron content of these spheres (I have looked at hundreds of them now, in the WTC dust) is often above 20%..."
• "All of the iron-aluminum spheres I have found in the WTC dust show abundant OXYGEN. Often O is the principal element in the spheres."

So it would seem that the most abundant and "suspicious" spheres are actually mixed bags of oxides, with iron being a minor ingredient (often 10-20%), and apparently also Al, Si, K playing a large role, but oxygen above all!

Which tells me it aint thermte, because thermite would produce nearly pure iron.

Iron oxide is at least (Fe2O3) 70% by weight iron, 30% oxygen. Other oxides are 78:22 (FeO) or 72:28 (Fe3O4)
Aluminium oxide (Al2O3) is 53% Al, 47%O.
SiO2 is 54:46.

Since the sphereules are not pure iron, I fail to see how any person in good health, with an IQ over 100 could conclude that they werre produced by thermite.

My math is inadequate, but aren't the percentages of AlO₂and SiO₂correct for kaolin?

Totally useless to be talking about the melting point of iron in that context.

Can you melt FeO?

 

[BasqueArch]

Ivan

Incinerator fly ash analyzed. All sorts of microspheres, at temperatures of 1000C-1200C.
http://suwic.group.shef.ac.uk/posters/p-ash.pdf

You are right and Chris7 has my respect in this matter.

Btw, using "yahooing" instead of googling, I have just found this interesting and detailed (freely available) Russian paper on ferrospheres from fly ashes ("from 14 heat and electric power plants"). I am now lazy to read this all, but in introduction, the formation of ferrospheres is described roughly as a melting of FeO-CaO-MgO-SiO₂-Al₂O₃ complex.
Composition of spheres varied in the very wide range, see the paper.

The top link shows ferrospheres and volatile (vapor) lead created at <1200C temperatures among other things.

One cause may be the "melting point depression effect"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting-point_depression

 

[Tezro]

I'm looking at PVC which normally used to be stabilised by Pb. Combustion of PVC gives off HCl. And HCl reacts readily with Pb (which is all over the place in buildings, 2-8 lbs worth in old CRTs) to form PbCl which has a far lower boiling temperature and will readily volatize.

There's a huge amount of complex chemistry going on in the fires due to the different materials and fuels present and the temperatures created. Smoke temperatures of around 1000°C are normal in office and dwelling fires.

Truthers don't realise this and will just focus on a specific simple idea like "iron melts at 1540°C" and that's all they have. They don't realise the difference between using a lighted splint to set fire to 1Kg of Mg ribbon, which will readily burn/rapidly oxidise and a block of 1Kg of Mg not behaving in the same way.

It's the same for steel - why can you burn 1Kg of wire wool AND produce iron-microspheres by setting it on fire with a lighted splint, but can't burn a solid block of 1Kg of iron the same way?

They then can't get it into their heads that in a building there will be dozens of items that will utilise thin pieces of steel or iron as thin as steel wool and not just great big lumps of steel in columns and girders.

They then can't see that if you have thin bits of steel in a building that is on fire that those bits will produce microspheres just in the same way that burning steel wool does.

It's sad but also funny at the same time. I'm loving the idea of lugging tons of themite into a building and spreading it all over the monitors and PCs so as to volatize lead. I read somewhere that Jones or Harrit was touting between 29,000 and 143,000 metric tons of thermite was used (as calculated from the amount of iron in the dust). Maximum Take Off Weight of a 747 is around 400 metric tons so you'd need 72 747's worth of thermite minimum to do the job by truther calculation. lol.

I was reading through this thread and thought this was a great post, which of course went unaddressed by Christopher7.

It also made me think of another category of metal in the fires which I don't think I've ever heard mentioned (though I'm pretty new to this)...metal duct for HVAC systems.

I haven't the faintest idea what kind of material would have been in the duct work in the WTC, or how it might have responded in the WTC fires, but there surely was a lot of it exposed to the hottest temperatures on the fire floors. What happens to HVAC ducts in fire? Sunstealer's comments about thinner pieces of steel got me thinking about that. Does anyone have any insight into this?

edit- I realize this has probably been dealt with ad nauseum, but bear with me, I'm new here.

 

[BasqueArch]

Ug! Basque man speak with sharp tong.

Thanks.

 

[Oystein]

Which tells me it aint thermte, because thermite would produce nearly pure iron.

Since the sphereules are not pure iron, I fail to see how any person in good health, with an IQ over 100 could conclude that they werre produced by thermite.

Yes, but it would be quite possible that after the thermite reaction has produced tiny spheres⁽¹⁾ with pure iron, but as these are initially hot and liquid, they would be rather likely to immediately react with ambient oxygen (burn), or corrode later on. So yes, there should be some elemental iron, but not necesserily so much.

My math is inadequate, but aren't the percentages of AlO₂and SiO₂correct for kaolin?

Don't go there. While kaolinite is probably not particularly rare in a building (in paper, paints...), it also is far from the only Al-Silicate. In my calculation, I was just thinking what compounds Al and Si would form in the simplest case, and that would be their respective oxides, Alumina and Silica. You are right of course that some of the Al and Si in Jones's or anybody's spheres are Aluminium Silicates. Kaolinite has a sum formula of Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄, or, if you ignore the H, Al₂Si₂O₉. You could split that off to Al₂O₃ + 2 SiO₂, and would be left with 2 more O-atoms. Makes a difference of something like 7 percent among these 3 elements, and less if you throw in all the rest. Since I was looking at iron proportions in increments of 10% of total sphere mass, that difference of a couple O-atoms between oxides and silicates doesn't matter.

Can you melt FeO?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeO
Melting point 1377 °C


Footnote:
(1) Of course the bulk amounts of thermite charges would produce bulk amounts of reaction products, not spheres, but since we are talking about spheres here, I'll let that pass

 

[Christopher7]

Yes, but it would be quite possible that after the thermite reaction has produced tiny spheres⁽¹⁾ with pure iron, but as these are initially hot and liquid, they would be rather likely to immediately react with ambient oxygen (burn), or corrode later on. So yes, there should be some elemental iron, but not necesserily so much.

Footnote:

(1) Of course the bulk amounts of thermite charges would produce bulk amounts of reaction products, not spheres, but since we are talking about spheres here, I'll let that pass

Thank you for your analysis.

I would like to remind you all that the RJ Lee Group did a thorough study of the WTC dust using state of the art technology, and you all did not.

All the possible sources that y'all have come up with ignore this statement by the professionals who studied the dust:
"Various metals (most notably iron and lead) were melted during the WTC event, producing spherical metallic particles."

Note they clearly said that Iron melted producing spherical metallic particles, not office furnishings burned producing spherical metallic particles.

The common tactic here is to sidestep or jump over this fact and ask about thermite.
One step at a time please. First come to grips with the scientifically verified fact that iron melted.

 

[BasqueArch]

Thank you for your analysis.

I would like to remind you all that the RJ Lee Group did a thorough study of the WTC dust using state of the art technology, and you all did not.

All the possible sources that y'all have come up with ignore this statement by the professionals who studied the dust:
"Various metals (most notably iron and lead) were melted during the WTC event, producing spherical metallic particles."

Note they clearly said that Iron melted producing spherical metallic particles, not office furnishings burned producing spherical metallic particles.

The common tactic here is to sidestep or jump over this fact and ask about thermite.
One step at a time please. First come to grips with the scientifically verified fact that iron melted.

Yes, nanoiron at office fire temperatures.

Peak fire temperature normally associated with room fires is around 1200C.

Of interest, however, is the peak fire temperature normally associated with room fires. The peak value is governed by ventilation and fuel supply characteristics [12] and so such values will form a wide frequency distribution. Of interest is the maximum value which is fairly regularly found. This value turns out to be around 1200°C.

http://www.doctorfire.com/flametmp.html

Maximum atmosphere temperature 1213C.

Cardington Fire Tests

3.7 Test 6: The office demonstration test …..
The aim of this test was to demonstrate structural behaviour in a realistic fire scenario.
….. The maximum atmosphere temperature was 1213°C and the maximum average temperature was approximately 900°C (see Figure B.3.15). The maximum temperature of the unprotected steel was 1150°C.

The maximum atmosphere temperature 1254C

BHP test building

The fire was started in the open plan area and allowed to develop with the sprinklers switched off. The maximum atmosphere temperature reached 1254°C

Atmosphere temperature exceeds 1000C

Stuttgart-VaihingenUniversity in Germany fire test
During the test, the atmosphere temperature exceeded 1000°C,

Link for all the above
http://guardian.150m.com/fire/small/SCI.htm


It’s been shown that office fires can reach 1254C.
And that ferrospheres and volatile (vapor) lead are created at <1200C temperatures, less than the melting point of bulk iron (1535C) and bulk lead boiling point (1740C)- Melting point of bulk lead (327C) So Jones and C7 are wrong that iron temperatures need to be 1535C to produce ferrospheres and that lead has to boil to vaporize.
http://suwic.group.shef.ac.uk/posters/p-ash.pdf


Due to the “melting point depression” phenomena.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting-point_depression

First come to grips with the scientifically verified fact that ferrospheres and volatile (vapor) lead are created at less than the melting point of bulk iron (1535C) and bulk lead boiling point (1740C)

 

[Christopher7]

Yes, nanoiron at office fire temperatures.

Peak fire temperature normally associated with room fires is around 1200C.
Maximum atmosphere temperature 1213C.
The maximum atmosphere temperature 1254C
Atmosphere temperature exceeds 1000C
Link for all the above
http://guardian.150m.com/fire/small/SCI.htm

It’s been shown that office fires can reach 1254C.
And that ferrospheres and volatile (vapor) lead are created at <1200C temperatures, less than the melting point of bulk iron (1535C) and bulk lead boiling point (1740C)- Melting point of bulk lead (327C) So Jones and C7 are wrong that iron temperatures need to be 1535C to produce ferrospheres and that lead has to boil to vaporize.
http://suwic.group.shef.ac.uk/posters/p-ash.pdf

Due to the “melting point depression” phenomena.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting-point_depression

First come to grips with the scientifically verified fact that ferrospheres and volatile (vapor) lead are created at less than the melting point of bulk iron (1535C) and bulk lead boiling point (1740C)

We are talking about the melting of iron and there is NO evidence that temperatures in the TT exceeded 1100^oC. NIST said that temperatures of 1000-1100^oC only lasted for about 15 min in any location.

ETA: What nano-iron? Read my post again:
Note they clearly said that Iron melted producing spherical metallic particles, not office furnishings burned producing spherical metallic particles.