WTC Dust Study Feb 29, 2012 by Dr. James Millette

[Senenmut]

There simply is no point in debating with people who think that a DSC analysis is in anyway is comparable with established techniques such as FTIR and TEM-SAED that go above and beyond the Harrit et al paper when conducting a materials characterisation exercise.

if your not testing the same material then it is pointless!

They don't understand the data presented.

the point is that he did not absolutely confirm that his chips are the same as jones' chips. why test any further. if he tested a few of his chips after the EDX analysis was done in the dsc and they reacted at about 430C and produced the same spike then he could continue on with more certainity that these are in fact the same chips as jones has.

Millette's study uses techniques that give a definitive answer which is what us debunkers have been asking for all along.

only if they are the same material.

Chris Mohr has already stated why Dr Millette has not performed any DSC experiment. It's simply not required. FTIR and TEM studies go far above the analysis conducted by Harrit et al.

if you are studying the same material...again. he did not make a good arguement that it is in FACT the same materail.

If truthers are so concerned then they should petition Harrit, Jones, Basil, Ryan etc to subject their samples to the higher and more rigorous analysis that is FTIR etc.

sounds like a plan.

Millette's study shows exactly the same but goes further with regard to the analytical methods used. That further analysis confirms kaolin via EDX, FTIR and TEM-SAED, confirms Fe203 particles and best of all confirms epoxy as the binder material using FTIR, which is a test any analytical chemist would know about and want to use.

again, if it is the same material which it may not be.

You are all intent on attacking Millette for lack of a needless DSC test, but you won't question why Harrit et al didn't conduct a test to ascertain what the binder material was. Double standards.

its not needless if your not for sure you got the same material.

I

've asked you to show how Millette's study, using Millette's data and comparing it with the same data obtained by the same method by Harrit et al, differs significantly so as to show that the materials in each study are different. You can't do that. Instead you moan about DSC and quote from a poor paper. Why can't truthers on JREF actually do the analysis? Why can't you perform an analysis between Millette's and Harrit et al's data?

you can NOT say its the same for sure without the dsc test.

FTIR trumps DSC every time. TEM-SAED trumps DSC evertime. Truthers won't understand why.

if you know you got the same material.

 

[cjnewson88]

Let me get this right.

Jones and others finds red/gray chips.

The crux of Jones argument is that he tested the red/gray chips on a DSC with known nanothermite:

The Blue line is the chips, (edit) the other lines are other chips found.

He then lays over nanothermite reaction onto it, showing it to be endothermic until about 370°C, and reacting much later and differently to the paint and red/gray sample.

Instead of stating that it is indeed a completely unrelated material, Jones tells everyone it is 'similar' and therefore nanothermite. Everyone believes him without question.

5 years later, after no attempts at publishing the findings in any respectable peer reviewed journals, or attempts at reconstructing/duplicating the experiment through any other avenue, Millette finds exact matches for the red/gray chips, and rather than relying on DSC, completes a series of more advanced and accurate test, which determine that the chips are not thermite, and are instead paint. Even though Millette carried out no DSC, Jones graph of the DSC supports Millette findings anyway.

However, after running short of character assassinations on Millette, truthers are now focused soli on the fact Millette didn't do his own DSC.

Regardless of the fact Millette did more advanced and accurate tests, that Millette determined exactly what they chips are and are not, or that Jones DSC matches Millette conclusion, Truthers are still refusing to acknowledge they have been fooled for 5 years because Millette didn't do his own DSC?

This is like if I discovered the world was round using Sputnik to plot points on the horizons, but told everyone the world was flat. Years later a satellite is launched which uses advanced scanners to determines the earth is in fact round. However because the satellite didn't use a method of plotting points on the horizon, the satellite is wrong and everyone has to continue to believe the world was flat..

 

[alienentity]

It's a shame Kevin Ryan didn't let Dr Millette have any of their dust/chip samples.

I wonder if he withheld because he was afraid it would be proved as paint, and that the truther flock would be orphaned on the myth of nanothermite. So by holding onto their samples, they ensure that
THERE CAN NEVER BE INDEPENDENT TESTING DONE.

It smells like a coverup to me, but then I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so perhaps there's another excuse...

 

[Justin39640]

It's a shame Kevin Ryan didn't let Dr Millette have any of their dust/chip samples.

I wonder if he withheld because he was afraid it would be proved as paint, and that the truther flock would be orphaned on the myth of nanothermite. So by holding onto their samples, they ensure that
THERE CAN NEVER BE INDEPENDENT TESTING DONE.

It smells like a coverup to me, but then I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so perhaps there's another excuse...

If these guys had an ounce of integrity, there wouldn't be a subforum here.

 

[332nd]

It's a shame Kevin Ryan didn't let Dr Millette have any of their dust/chip samples.

I wonder if he withheld because he was afraid it would be proved as paint, and that the truther flock would be orphaned on the myth of nanothermite. So by holding onto their samples, they ensure that
THERE CAN NEVER BE INDEPENDENT TESTING DONE.

It smells like a coverup to me, but then I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so perhaps there's another excuse...

Wait... didn't they offer samples to anyone who wanted them back when they first did the test? Or did I imagine that?

 

[LSSBB]

{Self edited for civility}

 

[triforcharity]

thats fine, just dont equate those to jones' chips without first doing a dsc and observe the spike and at what temp.


awesome!


there are many nanothermites out there.



what hurts is seeing you try and say the millette chips are the same as jones' chips without millette doing a dsc and observing the associated curve. only after around 430C do jones' chips react to produce the iron and silicon rich microspheres.
did millete heat his up to 430?

If as Jones et al. claim is that the nanothermite was about 6% (IIRC) of the total composition of the dust, why would it show in Jones' sample, and not in a similar sample taken from the SAME AREA?

 

[tfk]

Yes, it will be interesting to hear from Millette, RJ Lee, and Harrit, Jones, et al. on this.

And when it gets shown that, at this size, this iron alloy will melt and form microspheres at around 430C ( the temperature of burning primer paint & over 2000C below the burning temp of thermite), what will be your conclusion?

Will you come to any conclusions or is this "I'm interested in this" all just a charade?

 

[twinstead]

Sad to say, but from the truthers' reaction, any money contributed to Millette's study was totally wasted

 

[jaydeehess]

They dont need the same samples do they? They think that DSC tests of known paint chips of various types that have been mentioned will not react like their chips did. So cant they just do their own tests like Millette and Chris did and then show that when testing known paint samples it IS different?

M

there are several ways to settle this
1 Harrit supplies samples to Millette ancd the same tests are done as originallyy done on Millette samples

2 Millette samples to Harrit who do dsc on them
OR
3 what you said

 

[uke2se]

The good thing is that once this study passes peer-review and is published in a respected magazine, it will represet 100% more research into the technical details of 911 conspiracy theories than twoofers have done in over 10 years, and it will conclusively prove that twoofers are full of BS. What deluded twoofers say in this thread has no bearing on reality.

 

[Oystein]

(^ referring to posts like #126)

With regard to the repeated assertions that the chips are paint, Harrit and Jones have already reported:


So

• paint chips partly dissolve when soaked in MEK

They also

• 
  don't ignite at 430^o C.

Millette neither reports on partial dissolving in the MEK, nor did he do an ignition test.

If he really wanted to drive the final nail in the coffin of the nanothermite theory, as those who commissioned him clearly wanted him to do, why wouldn't he just do the test and dispel all doubt?

One of the many problems with Harrit's (Farrer's) DSC testing is that we don't know which kind or kinds of chips they tested to get the 4 graphs they published.
- Was it the kind of paint chips that contain kaolin but no zinc and no mg?
- Was it the kind of paint that contains zinc and magnesium, but no kaolin?
- Was it one of the other kinds of chips - some contained lead, some others titanium?

So do you know that the kind of chip they soaked in MEK is the kind of chip they put in the DSC? Answer: No you don't. In fact, if you look at the four chips that they showed DSC data of, that combust between 380°C and 480°C, you will notice that this is the ONLY thing we know about them. Or can you point out to ANY other data Farret, Harrit Jones have provided about these four specimens? They tell us which sampled these dust chips were taken from, and that information proves these four chips are not the same four chips as chips (a)-(d), so really we know absolutely nothing about them.
Since Harrit and Jones have studied at least 6 different kinds of chips (kaolin; zinc and magnesium; lead; titanium; multilayered; darc-gray layer carbon) and possibly even more, it is totally pointless to use the DSC data for anything at all.



And that was why Millette had the intelligence not to do any DSC test.


As an excercise for you and Senemut:


Please list all facts that you know about the chips that burn around 430°C!

 

[Oystein]

if your not testing the same material then it is pointless!
...

Exactly!


Please take a close, long and careful look at Harrit e.al. (the Bentham paper)


Which material were they testing in the DSC? What properties do these four chips have? Please give us an exhaustive list of all the properties you know, with reference to the paper (figures and discussion in the text; page numbers).

Hint: You won't find any at all beyond the DSC data itself. At most you may speculate that they were red-gray too and attracted to a magnet.
Hint: Try to find any photos or spectra - there are none.


So what material are these four chips? Please be specific!

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Exactly!


Please take a close, long and careful look at Harrit e.al. (the Bentham paper)


Which material were they testing in the DSC? What properties do these four chips have? Please give us an exhaustive list of all the properties you know, with reference to the paper (figures and discussion in the text; page numbers).

Hint: You won't find any at all beyond the DSC data itself. At most you may speculate that they were red-gray too and attracted to a magnet.
Hint: Try to find any photos or spectra - there are none.


So what material are these four chips? Please be specific!

Exactly
Moreover, exothermic peaks depicted in Fig. 19 and 29 are by no means "narrow" and show no "extremely high rate of energy release" (as was stupidly claimed by Bentham team and now by Senenmut), since the thermal energy was released in the range ca 50 to 100 degrees C. Considering the heating rate 10 degrees per minute, this corresponds to 5 to 10 minutes!. This was just a typical slow burning of organic polymer binder.
Btw, also superthermite DSC curve under air used for comparison is by no means narrow and does not itself prove the typical thermitic reaction which must be very fast after ignition. Exotherms, which should be regarded as proofs for rapid thermitic reaction should look like e.g. here , Fig. 6. Here, the exothermic peak at ca 590 degrees C is really extremelly narrow and shows clearly thermitic reaction

 

[Sunstealer]

Exactly
Moreover, exothermic peaks depicted in Fig. 19 and 29 are by no means "narrow" and show no "extremely high rate of energy release" (as was stupidly claimed by Bentham team and now by Senenmut), since the thermal energy was released in the range ca 50 to 100 degrees C. Considering the heating rate 10 degrees per minute, this corresponds to 5 to 10 minutes!. This was just a typical slow burning of organic polymer binder.
Btw, also superthermite DSC curve under air used for comparison is by no means narrow and does not itself prove the typical thermitic reaction which must be very fast after ignition. Exotherms, which should be regarded as proofs for rapid thermitic reaction should look like e.g. here , Fig. 6. Here, the exothermic peak at ca 590 degrees C is really extremelly narrow and shows clearly thermitic reaction

I don't think truthers actually understand the graphs they are looking at. Even a simple yield strength v temperature graph seems to confuse them so there's no way they can understand the DSC curve. They'd also have to read the Harrit paper thoroughly too to find the heating rate.

Remember that it was Farrer that did the DSC testing and he had no idea what a DSC was. He'd never used one before. So inexperienced people like Farrer and Jones probably think that just looking at the graph and saying, "my that looks like a narrow peak" indicates that it is. Infact they probably think it's narrow just because it's narrower than the Tillitson curve. Truthers then just quote the nonsense without any understanding or analysis of the data.

If you read the Tillitson paper and find out the particle size and then compare it with the particle size that Harrit et al find then look at published data for the reduction of ignition temperature with particle size you'll come to a conclusion that proves that it's not the particles in the Harrit et al paper that are reacting at 430°C.

I won't spoil it, maybe later, I'll revisit this. It won't make any difference to truthers but it's an interesting exercise.

Oh and Ivan, you've linked to an 11mb PDF by the way.

 

[pgimeno]

Sad to say, but from the truthers' reaction, any money contributed to Millette's study was totally wasted

I already knew that. But hopefully when it's published in final form, it will help bringing balance to some Wikipedia entries like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_controlled_demolition_conspiracy_theories

 

[Oystein]

Let's look at this closely:

The blue line (MacKinlay 1) is closest to the Tillotson graph.

Let's compare the two graphs:

Property|MacKinlay 1|Tillotson
Stops being endotherm at|200°C|310°C
Starts being exotherm at|200°C|380°C
Exotherm peak begins in earnest at|420°C|490°C
Peaks at|440°C|525°C
Curve drops below 0 again at|never|560°C
Peak flattens out at|480°C|580°C
Peak hight is|~10.3 W/g|5.1 W/g
Energy density|1.5 kJ/g|1.5 kJ/g

The peaks of other three lines are are even farther away from Tillotson.



Now as for the assertion that the peak hight, a measure in W/g (power per mass unit) indicates a very rapid reaction, here is the bare truth of the matter:

Farrer found that MacKinlay 1 has 1.5 kJ/g of energy, or 1500 J/g.
If you burn 1g of that chip and it burns in 1 second, the specific power release would be 1500 W/g, because 1W = 1 J/s, by definition.

However, actual power maxed at only about 10.3 W/g. This means that if you burn 1g of this substance and it sustains this peak power of 10.5 J/s/g, it will burn for 1500/10.3 seconds = 146s or 2 minutes and 26 seconds.

Just picture this, please: A tiny bit of this "highly energetic" material and it takes two and half minutes to burn!

Now of course for almost all of the time, this chip actually burned at an even lower rate! Before 430°C and after 450°C, burn rate (power, to be more precise) is less than half that peak value. In fact, the "narrow peak" goes from 420°C to 480°C. At a heating rate of 10°C/min, that peak alone corresponds to 6 minutes of continuous smouldering. The peaks of the other three chips are even wider. If they had burned at peak power from beginning to end (15, 21.5 and 23.5 W/g), they would have taken 3:20min, 4:39min and 6:19min, respectively, to burn off their total energy densities of 3, 6 and 7.5 k/J.



Please, ergo and Senemut, acknowledge that you now understand that the tiny little specks of dust that Farrer tested in the DSC all took several minutes to burn!


To put this into perspective, take an ordinary wooden safety match and light it and let it burn till you nearly burn your fingers.

I just did. My matches are 2mm by 2mm across and 4cm long. I let them burn until only 1cm is left, so the volume I burn is 3*0.2*0.2 cm³ = 0.12cm³. It is probably made of the wood of a European kind of poplar, which would have a density of 0.6g/cm³. So I am burning 0.072g of material there (after the head has ignited). The top half of the match is dipped in paraffin.
Wood has an energy density of about 16 kJ/g, paraffin has probably more than 40 kJ/g, but I don't know how much paraffin there is in a match stick. So let's be careful and say the wood stick has an energy density of only 20 kJ/g. This gives the 3cm of match stick that I burn a total energy of 1,440J, at 0.072g.

My match tends to go out by itself when I hold it horizontally, but burns nice and smooth if I hold the head slightly down. In that position, it is consumed in 10 seconds. I measured that.

So the power was 1,440J / 10s, or 144W.

And power density was 144W/0.072g = 2,000 W/g



A match stick burning slowly in your hand releases about 85 times the power that Farrer's most energetic chip did in the DSC when it reacted at its most vigorous!



ETA: # oysteinbookmark (and I corrected the energy density of match stick)

 

[Oystein]

.

To merit consideration, any assertion that a prosaic substance such as paint could match the characteristics we have described would have to be accompanied by empirical demonstration using a sample of the proposed material, including SEM/XEDS and DSC analyses.

Millette did not meet the challenge.

Harrit, Jones, et al. did not meet their own challenge. They totally failed to show what the stuff was they put in the DSC. They showed conclusively that there were at least 6 different kinds of chips in the ir study, but gave absolutely no indication which of these six or more kinds ignite at what temperature or have which DSC profile. It is entirely possible that the DSC results come from a kind of chip that otherwise does not appear at all in their crap paper.

Do you understand that, ergo? Do you understand that we know absolutely nothing about the four chips they measured in the DSC? Do you understand that we can't reproduce their test because we don't know if they measured chips with kaolin but no zinc and magnesium, or chips with zinc and magnesium but no kaolin, or chips with titanium, or chips with lead, or multilayered chips, or chips where the gray layer contains no metal? Or can you tell us which chips they measured in the DSC?

Looking at the raw data from Millette's interim report, can you tell us which chips he should have put in the DSC? Please give us page number and identify the specimens in Millette's report that YOU would test against Farrer's four DSC tests - and give us precise reasons for your choice!

If you go through that exercise, I hope you will finally understand that the DSC tests in Harrit, Jones, et al. are totally, utterly worthless, because you can never know what chips to take. They were so abysmally sloppy, and too stupid to notice even after years of having their faces rubbed in their own feces.

 

[Senenmut]

One of the many problems with Harrit's (Farrer's) DSC testing is that we don't know which kind or kinds of chips they tested to get the 4 graphs they published.
- Was it the kind of paint chips that contain kaolin but no zinc and no mg?
- Was it the kind of paint that contains zinc and magnesium, but no kaolin?
- Was it one of the other kinds of chips - some contained lead, some others titanium?

So do you know that the kind of chip they soaked in MEK is the kind of chip they put in the DSC? Answer: No you don't. In fact, if you look at the four chips that they showed DSC data of, that combust between 380°C and 480°C, you will notice that this is the ONLY thing we know about them. Or can you point out to ANY other data Farret, Harrit Jones have provided about these four specimens? They tell us which sampled these dust chips were taken from, and that information proves these four chips are not the same four chips as chips (a)-(d), so really we know absolutely nothing about them.
Since Harrit and Jones have studied at least 6 different kinds of chips (kaolin; zinc and magnesium; lead; titanium; multilayered; darc-gray layer carbon) and possibly even more, it is totally pointless to use the DSC data for anything at all.



And that was why Millette had the intelligence not to do any DSC test.


As an excercise for you and Senemut:


Please list all facts that you know about the chips that burn around 430°C!

you know as well as i do it probably boils down to elemental AL. and again, i challenge jones and crew to find some al2o3 after the reaction takes place.

 

[Senenmut]

Exactly!


Please take a close, long and careful look at Harrit e.al. (the Bentham paper)


Which material were they testing in the DSC? What properties do these four chips have? Please give us an exhaustive list of all the properties you know, with reference to the paper (figures and discussion in the text; page numbers).

Hint: You won't find any at all beyond the DSC data itself. At most you may speculate that they were red-gray too and attracted to a magnet.
Hint: Try to find any photos or spectra - there are none.


So what material are these four chips? Please be specific!

this is the point. will the chips that millette has react like those jones has. will they react around 430C or will they do what farrer has said paint does in a dsc:
"Dr. Farrer has ignited a paint sample in a DSC and the paint sample showed a much broader thermal spike, indicating a relatively slow heat-release"

http://911blogger.com/news/2012-02-...e-study-coming-within-weeks-dr-james-millette