Merged "Iron-rich spheres" - scienctific explanation?

[BasqueArch]

They were not referring to nano particles when they said:
"melting of iron (or steel)"

They were referring to "bulk" iron or steel.

They also also said that lead volatilized [vaporized] during the collapse and that indicates 3180^oF.

I inquired again but Dr. Lee is out of the office this week so we will have to wait for his reply.

Where does RJ Lee say "We are not referring to nano particles"
Where does RJ Lee say "We are referring to "bulk" iron or steel"
What part of iron particles is not iron.
Do you understand that:
"the melting temperature of iron particles in the range of a few nanometers lies approximately between 200~400°C compared to 1538°C for bulk iron. " quoted above.

 

[MarkLindeman]

The RJ Lee report says that the iron spheres are from melted iron or steel.

Dude, the question remains: why does it matter what the report says? Maybe it's right; maybe it's wrong; maybe the truth value can't be determined because of ambiguity. So what? Why are you apparently more interested in parsing the report than in exploring what could account for the iron spheres?

 

[tfk]

http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/pp/projects/laserprintforming.html

Basque,

Nice find..!

Learn something new every day.

Thanks.

Tom

 

[Josarhus]

What would you consider as similar? The thermite reaction, as opposed to, say, ordinary organic combustion, is characterized by the following features:

• Need no atmospheric (gaseous) oxygen (O comes from solid metal oxide)
• Produces no gaseous reaction products
• Because of these first two points, can (but doesn't necessarily) reach temperatures in excess of 1500°C
• While one substance (the free, metallic aluminum) gets oxidized, annother (iron oxide) gets reduced, producing an elemental metal (iron))

So what similarity are you looking for? The high temps, or the reducing of metal oxide?

Well, because gases are involved as well as oxidized inorganic pigements, the paint chips will not reach any remarkable temperatures when burned. It is in theory conceivable that under some conditions, some of the carbon matrix burns inefficiently and produces carbon monixide (CO). CO in turn is indeed able to reduce iron oxide to iron. But I'd doubt that this would happen to all or most of the iron oxide, if at all. Much more likely, the pigments will be left after incineration of the epoxy as they were before, and get concentrated. Perhaps if some of the epoxy doesn't burn away, it (or its solid residues) forms spheres and trap the pigments.

I doubt that iron or iron oxide actually melts to form such spheres.

Thanks Oystein, I am still trying to figure out this whole themite thing, and you have done a lot in helping me to understand!

The reason why I’m asking is, that in Harrits 2009 Bentham paper he claims that heating of these chips resulted in the forming of the spheres.
When Frédéric Henry-Couannier tested the exact same dust as Harrit and also tried to heat the chips, nothing happened.

It must be said that the chip Harrit heated both had a red and a grey layer, Couannier only had chips with a red layer, since he could only find ONE chip with both the red and the gray layer in his 7g sample from Harrit, and that chip could not be heated due to previous tests.

Now if we assume that both Harrit and Couannier are telling the truth about how their chips reacted when heated, we can conclude that it is the gray layer alone that is forming these spheres and since the red part is not thermite, it is the way that Harrit heated his chip that did the trick.

In other words, Harrit created these spheres by applying a blow torch to the gray part, and not by making the red part react.

Is this completely down the wrong track or am I getting closer?

 

[beachnut]

They were not referring to nano particles when they said:
"melting of iron (or steel)"

They were referring to "bulk" iron or steel.

They also also said that lead volatilized [vaporized] during the collapse and that indicates 3180^oF.

I inquired again but Dr. Lee is out of the office this week so we will have to wait for his reply.

Lead is in paint, it is vaporized at 1100 F.
The lead in the mineral wool was there when manufactured before 1970.


When things with lead in them are burnt, you get vaporized lead, at temperatures you find in fires.

Feel free to repeat your failed claims of 3000 F, good luck. Please take some chemistry classes related to fire forensics so your posts will not be an example of nonsense.

 

[Sunstealer]

Thanks Oystein, I am still trying to figure out this whole themite thing, and you have done a lot in helping me to understand!

The reason why I’m asking is, that in Harrits 2009 Bentham paper he claims that heating of these chips resulted in the forming of the spheres.
When Frédéric Henry-Couannier tested the exact same dust as Harrit and also tried to heat the chips, nothing happened.

It must be said that the chip Harrit heated both had a red and a grey layer, Couannier only had chips with a red layer, since he could only find ONE chip with both the red and the gray layer in his 7g sample from Harrit, and that chip could not be heated due to previous tests.

Now if we assume that both Harrit and Couannier are telling the truth about how their chips reacted when heated, we can conclude that it is the gray layer alone that is forming these spheres and since the red part is not thermite, it is the way that Harrit heated his chip that did the trick.

In other words, Harrit created these spheres by applying a blow torch to the gray part, and not by making the red part react.

Is this completely down the wrong track or am I getting closer?

You are nearly there. I've highlighted the bit that gets you to where you need to be.

If you study the Harrit et al paper (Bentham) and go to Page 20, Figure 20, you'll see post DSC residues. It is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain stem that it's the gray layer that is reacting to form the microspheres.

Gray layer is observed before DSC. No gray layer post DSC but red layer remains. Gray microspheres observed post DSC adhering to red layer. Ergo microspheres are made from gray layer.

It really is that simple, however, because Harrit et al were either incompetent or blinded by their bias and requirement for thermite to be present they never really looked at what was actually forming the microspheres. They claim the red layer is thermite but it's not the red layer that is forming the bulk of the microsphere material. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see this.

So what is the gray material? Well it's oxidised steel. This I've shown to be the case on many occasions by comparing known spectra and spectra from the FEMA and metallographic examination of corroded steel from the WTC. The latest study of these chips confirms that the gray layer is steel.

It's these tiny thin flakes of oxidised steel that are forming microspheres. Harrit et al prove that. When combined with all the other data it becomes obvious.

The DSC has a heating rate of 10°C per minute.

The DSC tests were conducted with a linear heating rate of 10 °C per minute up to a temperature of 700 °C. During heating, the samples were contained in alumina pans and air was allowed to flow at 55 milliliters per minute during the heating. The plots were generated
by acquiring data points at a rate of 20 points per °C or 200 points per minute.

There is nothing special about the heating rate so I don't think it's how they were heated that causes the spheres to form.

Low-temperature ashing (LTA) is an alternative to using solvents to extract inorganic
constituents from an organic film or coating.6 LTA of the chips of interest was done
using an SPI Plasma Prep II plasma asher. LTA was performed for time periods of 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the size of the chip. The gray layer remained intact and the red layer residue was collected in clean water and drops of the suspension were placed on carbon-film TEM grids. After drying, the particulate was analyzed using a Philips CM120 TEM capable of SAED and equipped with an Oxford EDS system.

Chips of interest were ashed in a muffle furnace using a NEY Temperature Programmable furnace operated at 400oC for 1 hour. The gray layer remained intact and the red layer residue was prepared as described above and analyzed using a Philips CM120 TEM-SAED-EDS.

From Millette's study.

It appears that there is a certain temperature threshold for the spheres to form. I don't know what atmosphere these methods use but I suspect it's simply air otherwise Millette would say and muffle furnaces are very commonly used.

 

[Edx]

I inquired again but Dr. Lee is out of the office this week so we will have to wait for his reply.

Why do you even care?

You know full well he isnt going to agree with you, he isnt going to agree that impossible temperatures only explained by thermite destroyed the towers and created those spheres. So that leaves him either incompetent or in on it.

 

[Sunstealer]

C7 - how can iron microspheres be formed at 430°C? Harrit et al show this happens in their paper. We know that the material they examined is paint adhered to oxidised steel so what's your take on that?

 

[Oystein]

Thanks Oystein, I am still trying to figure out this whole themite thing, and you have done a lot in helping me to understand!

The reason why I’m asking is, that in Harrits 2009 Bentham paper he claims that heating of these chips resulted in the forming of the spheres.
...
In other words, Harrit created these spheres by applying a blow torch to the gray part, and not by making the red part react.

Is this completely down the wrong track or am I getting closer?

Harrit e.al. are woefully imprecise about which chip was treated with which method. Basically, there are some chips that we see before any heating, and there are other chips that were heated, and they only show residue. There is not a single chip that they show before and after heating. So it is indeed very difficult to say what part of the chips changed in what way.

Some of the residues had been heated up to 700°C in the DSC, some were subjected to more extreme, but unknown, temperatures under a torch. I don't know if 700°C are enough to produces spheres of any kind. The torch certainly does that.

Then again, the spheres aren't all the same.


Basically, the Harrit paper is so poorly structured and the data so incomplete, you can't really conclude anything from all these residues.

 

[tsig]

The RJ Lee report says that the iron spheres are from melted iron or steel. Fly ash is not iron, it is iron oxide.

By focusing on the spheres rather than the statement that iron melted, you try to confuse the issue.

"Figure 21 and Figure 22 show a spherical iron particle resulting from the melting of iron (or steel)."

Iron melts at 2800^oF.

If the iron was melted then how did he see a beam?

 

[Christopher7]

They were not referring to nano particles when they said:
"melting of iron (or steel)"

They were referring to "bulk" iron or steel.

Where does RJ Lee say "We are not referring to nano particles"
Where does RJ Lee say "We are referring to "bulk" iron or steel"

The (or steel) indicates they think the iron spheres are a product of steel melting.

If they meant something other than "bulk' iron (or steel) they would have said so.

 

[alienentity]

The (or steel) indicates they think the iron spheres are a product of steel melting.

If they meant something other than "bulk' iron (or steel) they would have said so.

Why RU still obsessing about this wording? It doesn't make any difference one way or a'tuther to the fact that these kinds of things can be produced by temperatures well below the melting point of solid steel or iron....

 

[Christopher7]

Lead is in paint, it is vaporized at 1100 F.

Not always, but if it was, most of the vapors would have left the building with the smoke.

The lead in the mineral wool was there when manufactured before 1970.

You still don't seem to know the difference between "in" and "on" and you don't know better that the professionals who studied the dust.

When things with lead in them are burnt, you get vaporized lead, at temperatures you find in fires.

And most of those vapors left the building with the smoke.

The RJ Lee Group report said that the lead ON the surface of the fibers indicates that it vaporized during the collapse.

This statement clearly indicates temperatures of 3,180^oF during the collapse.

 

[Christopher7]

Why RU still obsessing about this wording? It doesn't make any difference one way or a'tuther to the fact that these kinds of things can be produced by temperatures well below the melting point of solid steel or iron....

Why RU still obsessing about this wording?

There is no reason to think they meant anything other that iron (or steel) in the form we usually associate it with.

 

[Christopher7]

C7 - how can iron microspheres be formed at 430°C? Harrit et al show this happens in their paper. We know that the material they examined is paint adhered to oxidised steel so what's your take on that?

At 430^oC the oxygen was stripped from the iron oxide in a thermetic reaction, leaving elemental iron spheres like the ones Harrit el al photographed in partially ignited red/grey chips.

Failure to replicate this critical part of the analysis and study the results means that Millette did not replicate the Harrit et al study.

 

[leftysergeant]

At 430^oC the oxygen was stripped from the iron oxide in a thermetic reaction, leaving elemental iron spheres like the ones Harrit el al photographed in partially ignited red/grey chips.

Failure to replicate this critical part of the analysis and study the results means that Millette did not replicate the Harrit et al study.

You have no evidence that the spheres were not already there. Photos of the paint peeling away from some of the steel revel iron particles embewdded in the paint.

Have you ever been inside a foundry? Did you notice that the air is always filled with airborn particles of whatever melt they are casting? The stuff gets into everything like the aftermath of an African sandstorm. That the paint flaked off so mnuch of the steel prior to 9/11 tells me that they did a sorry job of cleaning the steel before they painted it. They probably painted right over hundreds of pounds of iron sphereules.

They weren't exactly fabricating spacecraft there, you know.

 

[Christopher7]

You have no evidence that the spheres were not already there. Photos of the paint peeling away from some of the steel revel iron particles embewdded in the paint.

Source? Do the photos show spheres?

ETA: Did that waskely wabbit embewdded them?
couldn't wewist that one ;-)

 

[Edx]

The RJ Lee Group report said that the lead ON the surface of the fibers indicates that it vaporized during the collapse.

This statement clearly indicates temperatures of 3,180^oF during the collapse.

And for the nth time Christoper, do you really believe that RJ Lee believes that those temperatures existed in the towers that there... a.caused by thermite or b. caused by jet fuel ignited office fires?

Because you know as well as I do he does not think thermite had anything to do with it, and if its b, then he cant be be the "expert" you want him to be.

 

[Christopher7]

And for the nth time Christoper, do you really believe that RJ Lee believes that those temperatures existed in the towers

Yes

that there... a.caused by thermite or b. caused by jet fuel ignited office fires?

The RJ Lee group was doing an environmental study and the cause of the extreme temperatures was not their concern, only the resulting hazardous byproducts.

Some posters here like to call people liars and idiots. I don't think RJ Lee is either one, nor do I think he is an accomplice. I hope to get a clarification from him soon.

 

[Edx]

Yes

The RJ Lee group was doing an environmental study and the cause of the extreme temperatures was not their concern, only the resulting hazardous byproducts.

Some posters here like to call people liars and idiots. I don't think RJ Lee is either one, nor do I think he is an accomplice. I hope to get a clarification from him soon.

Once again you have not answered the question.
Do you believe that RJ lee believes that thermite caused super high temperatures in the towers?

If they really believe that impossibly high temperatures existed in the towers fires without thermite, then you cannot use them as an expert in anything,.