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

[ergo]

The reaction burns hotter than ignition temperature.

Thank you. Still don't see why he needs 4500^o F. Regular thermite reacts at temperatures above 900^o C

 

[beachnut]

Thank you. Still don't see why he needs 4500^o F. Regular thermite reacts at temperatures above 900^o C

Source?

Please

 

[DaveThomasNMSR]

Thank you. Still don't see why he needs 4500^o F. Regular thermite reacts at temperatures above 900^o C

For once, I agree - thermite goes at ~900 deg C.

Funny that Harrit et. al. make a big deal about their "thermite" being reactive at half that, a mere 430 deg C.

Source

 

[chrismohr]

Yes but once ignited, thermite and nanothermite both go to about 4500 degrees, and thermate maybe even higher, yes? THAT'S where the problem lies. At that point you have to use special crucibles, like tungsten or whatever (don't remember what the guy said today). Hw wouldn't risk his testing equipment on something that could ignite at a reasonable temperature and then burn at a much higher temperature!

 

[pgimeno]

I don't understand this. The chip ignited at 430^o C, because, allegedly, that's the temperature that produced the thermitic reaction. Why does he need 4500 deg F?

He doesn't "need" it. It's the temperature reached by the ignition of thermite. If he put the samples there and they ignited, the temperature they would produce would destroy the equipment, and he doesn't want to take that risk in case they *are* thermite.

Read again the part that says that DSC does not measure or control the temperature of the sample. It seems you missed it.

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Here's a summary of a 45 minute phone conversation I had with a tester at Particle Tech Labs. After I explained Jim Millette's study and the original Bentham paper to him about the thermites question, he pulled them up on his computer and gave them a quick look-see and said these things:

1.) I can do a DSC test but it will tell you nothing about the chemical composition of the materials in question. The chemical composition is much more important than a DSC test, which says nothing about what you have chemically.
2. You must know the chemistry of the sample first before you heat it. Then, a TGA (thermal gravitational analysis) can measure temperature of cooking vs mass loss. You have to have the right kind of test to get the proper combustion.
3. In a DSC analysis, you DON'T want to heat to combustion because at that point you lose your baseline. At that point in your DSC test "you throw everything to the wind." DSC is not the proper test for combustion of materials.
4. A DSC will measure the energy difference between a sample in a crucible and an empty crucible. The mass changes and that can be determined but again, not the chemical composition.
5. A bomb calorimetry test might be a little better for this, where you can measure the water temperature nearby as the material releases its energy. DSC is very limited in its usefulness for this purpose.
6. If argon or nitrogen is used in the testing atmosphere, and if there is no oxygen in the chips (as there would be in thermite), you could measure the gradual breakdown of the chemical structure as you heated it using different techniques than DSC.
7. WAIT A MINUTE! I couldn't test for thermitic materials! If they were there it would destroy my instruments! The alumina crucible used to hold the samples in the Bentham study can withstand temperatures of only 3200 degrees F, vs 4500 degrees for a thermitic reaction, so the crucible is not design to withstand the testing procedure if it IS thermitic. The Netzsch 404-C DSC testing device they used can handle high temperatures, which is a good thing. Not only could my equipment not measure temperatures in the thermitic range, but it would destroy my stuff so no I won't test it because I can't take the chance.
8. Netzsch Application Lab has very high temperature analysis ability, and several of the lab guys there have PhD's in thermal analysis. We can also ask them if they can analyze the DSC tests in the Bentham paper.
9. Just glancing at the Bentham DSC information, this is not my specialty but it makes no sense. Figure 19 doesn't look like the kind of energy curve I would expect from thermite, the ranges from each other are off by a factor of over 2, and I don't think this is the ignition temperature of thermite anyway. It looks more like a melting point curve at first glance, than a thermite energy release. But I'm no expert so check this impression of mine out.
10. One possibility would be a Simultaneous Thermal Analysis (STA) which would tie together DSC, TGA (to measure mass loss better) and Mass Spec. Cook the chips in oxygen to replicate the Bentham paper then cook them again in argon or nitrogen to see if they ignite at all.

So that's what the lab guy said. My conclusion, Senenmut: it will cost a lot more than $300 to go ahead with this and do it right. I mentioned the possibility of simply hiring someone to analyze what the Bentham DSC tests showed, and he said we might find the experts to do this at Netzsch.

I don't want to waste your money. What would you like to do?

Chris

Hi, Chris, thanks for this post. Some remarks:

Your expert confirmed in other way what I have repeated here (in the Paint thread) several times: DSC is not suitable method for measuring the thermal behavior of samples which do loose a substantial portion of mass during heating. This is why it is not very suitable, e.g., for measuring the thermal degradation of polymers or other combustion processes.
On the other hand, thermitic reaction should not be regarded as a typical combustion, and it is not a reaction accompanied with such substantial loss of material - in the case of classical thermitic reaction between Fe₂O₃ and Al, there is no such loss (theoretically), since Al₂O₃ and Fe are only products and the final mass of sample should be the same as before reaction. This is probably why DSC is sometimes used in papers dealing with thermites as one of the (less important) characterization methods.

Your expert is right that if thermitic reaction takes place in a typical very rapid fashion (in seconds or portions of second), it would melt even DSC alumina crucible. But thermitic reactions usually proceed quite slowly in DSC machine, during some minutes, as is seen e.g. in "famous" Fig. 29 in Bentham paper. Here, Oystein is very probably right and a reacting tiny thermite (or paint) sample will not increase its temperature above the actual temperature of measurements.
To be honest, I still do not know exactly why thermitic reactions are usually so slow in DSC devices; I have just a feeling that the typical, very rapid thermitic reaction must be triggered by some external temperature shock/flame ignition (which is not the case of processes taking place in DSC machines).
Anyway (I have to repeat again and again), both curves depicted in mentioned Fig. 29 are by no means proofs of thermitic reaction, since (among others) the release of heat is very slow (during ca 5 to 20 minutes) in both cases!!! Do you understand this plain fact, Senenmut? Why to repeat DSC experiments which simply do not prove thermitic reaction?

 

[Oystein]

The testing device could measure very high temperatures, but the crucible (container) they tested the chips in could not handle thermitic-level temperatures; it would have melted.

I believe that guy was jumping the gun here. What I said earlier: you have a tiny sample against a crucible that has a million times its mass, and a slowly proceding reacion as a result of that. No, there would not have been serious destructive melting.

By the way, the alumina crucible they used in the Bentham study is constructed of mostly aluminum oxide, which I believe is also the byproduct of thermitic reactions they were looking for. I forgot to mention that the scientist I was talking to wondered if the high temperatures of the burning may have leeched off a small amount of aluminum oxide into the test samples? Neither of us was sure about this though.

Which high temperature of which burning? There almost certainly was no high temperature in the Farrer test. He simply burned epoxy or some other organic polymer.

Even if there was thermite in Farrer's samples: It was only a minor portion of the samples, embedded in organic matrix and in close contact with inert minerals. Even if the reaction of such tiny amounts of could be said to produce temps of 4500°F, that temp would get dampened and whisked away by the other materials in the sample before it could touch the crucible.

 

[Oystein]

...
7. WAIT A MINUTE! I couldn't test for thermitic materials! If they were there it would destroy my instruments! The alumina crucible used to hold the samples in the Bentham study can withstand temperatures of only 3200 degrees F, vs 4500 degrees for a thermitic reaction, so the crucible is not design to withstand the testing procedure if it IS thermitic. The Netzsch 404-C DSC testing device they used can handle high temperatures, which is a good thing. Not only could my equipment not measure temperatures in the thermitic range, but it would destroy my stuff so no I won't test it because I can't take the chance.
...

No.

Temperature, in distinction from heat (energy) is an emergent property that arises as a dynamic equilibrium which depends on the immediate environment of the chemical reaction. So it is wrong to say that a certain reaction produces a certain temperature. Thermite produces temperatures in the range you mention only if is concentrated enough, and the heat is not promptly dissipated - which it would be if for example it was in contact with some organic material that it turns toi gas, or in contact with an inert layer of metal oxide.

 

[Oystein]

send these links to the lab you are talking too.
ignition of a nanothermite chip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1TwVACENAo&feature=related

and this one where we see the iron microspheres from the ignition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ7hXrmMRPc

so what would you say to tillotson about him testing his thermitic material in a dsc? would you say "OMG what if the test crucible itself proves no thermitic material?"

Chris, spare the lab the ordeal of wasting time on this moron Mark Basile.


Senemut, Basile has tried to quantify the chemical elements in the sample that you see burning there.

For details see my blog: How Mark Basile confirms that red-gray chips are not thermitic

Abstract
...Basile's favorite specimen is organic by nature, with at most 1.3%, but perhaps 0%, of the heat of reaction coming from a thermite reaction, the balacnce, 98.7%-100%, from ordinary organic hydrocarbon combustion.

If this result is a “confirmation” of Harrit e.al., as 9/11 Truthers like to point out, then clearly this puts in grave doubt the affirmation that Harrit's chips were of thermitic nature.

Why this video should be of any interest to any lab is beyond me. Basile shows burning of an unknown organic material.


Oh - well perhaps one good info: It shows that the crucible is NOT being damaged, because temperatures weren't nearly high enough.

 

[Oystein]

The reaction burns hotter than ignition temperature.

Not necessarily. It needs to burn hotter than ignition temperature to self-sustain, but that doesn't mean it always does. Basically, when you fail to ignite a candle or a piece of wood, part of the problem is that your are in conditions where heat of reaction gets so much dissipated so quickly that temperature turns out to be below ignition temperature, and flame goes out.

 

[Oystein]

Thank you. Still don't see why he needs 4500^o F. Regular thermite reacts at temperatures above 900^o C

Source?

Please

What's your problem? He is (about) right.
And some nano-thermite preparations have been measured to ignite around 550°C (e.g. Tillotson, Gash e.al.).

See, ergo has accepted that these chemical reactions don't require (bulk) temperatures above the (bulk) melting point of any of their reactants or products. I just wish he and all the other truthers would understand that which they already accept.

 

[Oystein]

Yes but once ignited, thermite and nanothermite both go to about 4500 degrees, and thermate maybe even higher, yes?

No. Not necessarily. This is usual for bulk amounts of sufficiently concentrated thermite, but may be, or probably is, wrong for micro-amounts and diluted preparations. All that's necessary for the burning to continue is that the reaction sustains a temperature significantly above the ignition point. If that ignition temperature is 900°C / 1650°F for regular thermite, then expect 1200°C / 2200°F to be a possible temperature of the burning stuff. If a given nano-thermite preparation ignited at 430°C/806°F (a hypothetical! We have no evidence of this!) then it could conceivably burn at 700°C/1300°F.






(I am simplifying things, of course. The thermodynamics of burning, particularly its spacial distribution, is difficult to model and even more difficult to measure. Perhaps a more useful remark would be to point out that the notion of temperature isn't very usefully applied to nano-scaled burning probes, as temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of molecules; if the probe is very small, with a large surface-to-mass ration, and bearing in mind that it's the surface where heat is lost the fastest, giving rise to serious gradients of heat density, then it becomes near impossible to find a volume inside the probe large enough to contain a statistically significant number of molecules whose average kinetic energy is high enough to be translated into the kind of extreme temperature that you mention. )

 

[pgimeno]

Thermite produces temperatures in the range you mention only if is concentrated enough, and the heat is not promptly dissipated - which it would be if for example it was in contact with some organic material that it turns toi gas, or in contact with an inert layer of metal oxide.

I stand corrected, thanks.

 

[Miragememories]

"Yes but once ignited, thermite and nanothermite both go to about 4500 degrees, and thermate maybe even higher, yes? THAT'S where the problem lies. At that point you have to use special crucibles, like tungsten or whatever (don't remember what the guy said today). Hw wouldn't risk his testing equipment on something that could ignite at a reasonable temperature and then burn at a much higher temperature!"

Hw is just betraying his ignorance of what is being requested.

The red chip clearly produces an exothermic reaction but it occurs for too short a duration to threaten its surroundings.

MM

 

[Ivan Kminek]

MM: here you are right: exothermic reactions are apparently taking place, since something is clearly burning for some seconds What about some organic polymer?

 

[Oystein]

Hw is just betraying his ignorance of what is being requested.

[qimg]http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/4021/wtccipignitioncomp2ar1.jpg[/qimg]

The red chip clearly produces an exothermic reaction but it occurs for too short a duration to threaten its surroundings.

MM

Correct.

By Mark Basile's OWN quantification, the red layer of this chip is AT MOST 4.74% thermite, but ca. 88% organic matrix. It follows that AT MOST 1.3% (but very possibly - no: certainly - 0%) of the heat of combustions could come from thermite, and 98.7% - 100% would come from organic combustion.

For details and proof see my blog: How Mark Basile confirms that red-gray chips are not thermitic

Please note that all my data are strictly taken from Mark Basile, and all my assumptions have a "thermite-friendly" bias. I make bo claims that I can't back up. If you disagree, show me what you think is wrong in my argument.



Then, when you have understood that Mark Basile's own analysis refutes the claim that the reaction seen in this video is themitic, try to think hard why you believed it was the thermite reaction. If you do this assessment honestly, you will find that you took it only on faith from charlatans, because you are a mere follower with no own capacity of critical and scientific thinking - a classical sheeple.

 

[ozeco41]

...Temperature, in distinction from heat (energy) is an emergent property that arises as a dynamic equilibrium which depends on the immediate environment of the chemical reaction. So it is wrong to say that a certain reaction produces a certain temperature.....

It's just one of those bits of basic physics which many people don't understand.

the same sort of error but not analogous to the common misunderstanding of the relationships between acceleration and velocity.

 

[OCaptain]

Hw is just betraying his ignorance of what is being requested.

[qimg]http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/4021/wtccipignitioncomp2ar1.jpg[/qimg]

The red chip clearly produces an exothermic reaction but it occurs for too short a duration to threaten its surroundings.

MM

And yet we're supposed to believe that this stuff can bring down two tall, steel-frame buildings???

You just debunked yourself, MM.

 

[WTC Dust]

Is there a way to show that Jones is a liar? Something that can't be disputed?

Hi Jeff! Yes, it can be shown that Jones made false statements about the color of aluminum.

Jones said that aluminum is the color of silver at all temperatures. This is ridiculous. Aluminum glows the same color as every other metal if you heat it up enough. The thing about aluminum is that it melts at a much lower temperature than required to glow orange. But if you heat it up to the proper temperature after it melts, it does glow orange.

 

[chrismohr]

Hw is just betraying his ignorance of what is being requested.

[qimg]http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/4021/wtccipignitioncomp2ar1.jpg[/qimg]

The red chip clearly produces an exothermic reaction but it occurs for too short a duration to threaten its surroundings.

MM

Hi MM and Senenmut,
I'm not sure who Hw is, but I am certainly willing to admit that I am gnorant of the crucible issue. It first came up for me when talking to an actual scientist at a lab that does DSC testing. At this point though, it looks like you are right if indeed you are claiming that a tiny amount of thermitic material would not generate 4500 degree temperatures and therefore would not melt the alumina crucible which can withstand 3200 F degree temperatures. It's possible that the guy I was talking to was not aware of the small sample size I was asking him to heat up. However, it is still true that the tungsten (or whatever it was he said) material is used for crucibles holding materials that a tester thinks may produce extreme temperatures, and a special lab is needed to do such a test.

Which brings be to Senenmut's generous offer. We have the name of a lab that can do tests on materials that may be incendiaries and/or bombs. The cost of their tests will be considerably higher. The lab guy I talked to who recommended them has refused to risk his equipment to test the red-gray chips. There are also people at that lab who have the expertise to analyze the DSC tests already done by Jones et al in the Bentham paper. Personally, I believe that may yield more information. I would suggest there is a good chance that a replication of the DSC testing in the Bentham paper will yield a similar collection of four data sets of wildly ranging energy outputs that Jones et al study found. It would be helpful for a specialized expert to render a scientific opinion on the data we have.

Anyway, if you really want to go forward on this DSC analysis, I can ask. Generally I try not to say too much about my opinions on the matter, and I say that in in any event, I don't want my opinions to color your conclusions anyway. The less extraneous material they have, the better. In the case of James Millette, basically I told him about the Bentham paper, and asked if he could do an independent analysis of the WTC dust. I didn't tell him how to do his job, and as much as possible tried to take his lead about information I fed him ("Do you want this or that?"). Many of my questions were trying to get reassurance that he would give honest answers to my question about thermitics in the dust.

Similarly, with this new lab, whether we end up asking for a full set of tests again or just an analysis of what we already have in the Bentham paper, I would say, here's a paper with DSC analysis of the red-gray chips. We can provide the chips, can you either 1) do another DSC analysis and see if it matches the results of the Bentham study and/or or 2) look at the Bentham paper and analyze what they have done and give us any conclusions (or lack of conclusions) you can give based on this data?