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A Thermite/Thermate Question

There's a general point about thermite reactions and EDAX chemical signatures that, it seems to me, hasn't actually been made in this or any other thread. Thermite depends entirely for its reaction on the oxidation state of the constituent metals, and EDAX traces give no information whatsoever about this. For example, a mixture of aluminium oxide and iron oxide will produce no oxidation reaction at all, and could only be distinguished from thermite by a larger ratio of oxygen to iron/aluminium peaks; this would of course be a perfectly safe and fairly commonplace set of ingredients in a paint formulation. Even more damningly for EDAX, a mixture of aluminium oxide and pure iron would be equivalent in composition to the end-point of a thermite reaction, and hence wouldn't function as thermite, yet EDAX wouldn't be able to distinguish between this and thermite at all. Therefore, claiming that a substance is thermite on the basis of EDAX traces is ignoring the most important property of thermite: that the iron is oxidised and the aluminium is not.

Paint, in general, contains inflammable substances unrelated to any thermite reaction. Claiming, as Steven Jones does, that a chip will ignite when heated and therefore contains thermite, is therefore no more than a wild guess. To determine whether the chips contain thermite, it would be necessary to perform some kind of calorimetry experiment, to see whether the heat of combustion is too high for paint and requires a thermite reaction. As a trained physicist, Steven Jones has no excuse for not knowing this, so I'm sure we can look forward to seeing his calorimetry results some time soon.

Dave
 
I have not seen a at Jones is comparing. I can't even read the identifyiung script for each spike, but one thing does seem clear to me. Jones' sample shows an awful lot more spikes than does the known thermite sample, and it appears to have an awful lot more elements that I would consider superfluous to the thermite reaction.

The the biggest problem with the red chips as thermite is that they would be far too thin to deliver any considerable amount of heat even if they did ignite. It would be rather like passing a cutting torch rapidly across the steel. It would be entirely transient.
 
Dave Rogers said:
There's a general point about thermite reactions and EDAX chemical signatures that, it seems to me, hasn't actually been made in this or any other thread. Thermite depends entirely for its reaction on the oxidation state of the constituent metals, and EDAX traces give no information whatsoever about this. For example, a mixture of aluminium oxide and iron oxide will produce no oxidation reaction at all, and could only be distinguished from thermite by a larger ratio of oxygen to iron/aluminium peaks...
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I think it's even worse than that Dave. Quantitative studies with EDAX are notoriously prone to error, especially with low atomic weight elements like oxygen. To obtain accurate Fe:O and Al:O ratios would require very careful calibration with standards of known composition.

I've seen no evidence of this calibration having been done by anyone in relation to the WTC dust samples. I suspect that the samples were simply shoved in the nearest electron microscope with EDAX capability and a spectrum obtained. The fact that this spectrum then contains iron, aluminium and oxygen peaks is trumpeted as irrefutable proof of therm?te. In reality, it's nothing of the sort.

I'd like to invite GiE, or anyone else, to provide evidence of the measures taken to ensure reliable and repeatable composition information from the EDAX spectra of WTC dust samples and thus show how the spectra can only be due to the presence of therm?te. This would provide them with a much more credible platform from which to spew fantasies further the discussion.
 
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Dave Rogers, Evilgiraffe - Thank you. I think I touched on the short-comings of EDX/EDS/EDAX analysis on another GiE thread regarding thermite but it's good to have other people who can throw light on the subject.

All of the spectra that I have seen from GiE and Jones lacks any additional data that would allow us to see how any calibration has been attained nor does it show any computational analysis of what compounds maybe present in the sample. Most EDX/EDS/EDAX SEM packages come with programs that are able to give good estimates of compounds present yet this data is never presented.

Leftsergeant - what you say is true. One only has to look at the thermite equation to understand that the amount of thermite is in direct proportion to the amount of substance that can be melted.

GiE- are you there?
 
Sunstealer said:
I concur. (And why do suspect the scales of the graphs are different in the two spectra).

Basically that signature (one on the LHS) is for Red Paint. It's not thermite or thermite residue or any other nonsense. Please GiE understand that I have experience with EDS/EDX and SEM examination. The pages below show that red paint is a much better match for that signature. It is NOT thermite, the two are so far apart it's not true.

http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?pid=S0327-07932007000200005&script=sci_arttext (Note - Au in spectra is the metallization of the sample (usually by gold spluttering).

http://www.mineralco.net/red-iron-oxide/index.php
http://chestofbooks.com/home-improv...r-Grinding/China-Clay-Or-Kaolin-In-Paint.html
http://www.dhirajlal.com/minerals.html
http://www.indiamart.com/shlokenterprise/minerals-chemicals.html

Why are you willing to believe Jones et al fully without any objective analysis? You don't know what you are looking at therefore the best thing you can do is ask an expert. Show it to a university department -chemistry/metallurgy will do, and see what they say if you don't believe me. Why would I lie? I'd put my professional reputation, my job, my house and car, the shirt on my back against that EDS spectra being thermite or capable of what you say it can do. It looks like red paint.
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Xcuze me for pulling up this old thread. Nothing to reply to here. Just look at the date (jan 2009). And we are still telling them the same things,,,

Nice links Sunstealer has there :)

# oysteinbookmark
 
Oystein said:
Xcuze me for pulling up this old thread. Nothing to reply to here. Just look at the date (jan 2009). And we are still telling them the same things,,,

# oysteinbookmark
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I found it interesting that SAIC was called out explicitly back then also.

MAGA mad dog.
 
LSSBB said:
Science Applications International Corporation
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Yeah, I knew that. Just busting spheroids.

BTW, it appears that most of the links in post 616 are no longer valid. Imagine that, only 7 years after Sunstealer posted them and a mere decade and a half after the events if 9/11/01
 
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jaydeehess said:
Yeah, I knew that. Just busting spheroids.

BTW, it appears that most of the links in post 616 are no longer valid. Imagine that, only 7 years after Sunstealer posted them and a mere decade and a half after the events if 9/11/01
Click to expand...

Fun fact: I've been in the SAIC HQ building once. Did not see any nanothermite. Come to think of it, I never really have seen the stuff, although I have seen two different nanoenergetic material fabrication labs at different times. Must not travel in the right circles, I guess, although it sure seems I would. Haven't been to LANL, I do know some folks that work there though.

I used to keep hearing about "military grade" versions of the stuff, and no one can cough up a MilSpec when I ask. Funny, that. You'd think with the Massive Quantities Necessary for Demolition the whole supply chain would be worked out on it, yet nothing there. Almost as if someone made the whole thing up to keep getting attention. A "Truther" wouldn't do that, would they? I mean, their followers wouldn't keep falling for it, what with seeking "the truth" and all.:confused:


:D
 
LSSBB said:
I used to keep hearing about "military grade" versions of the stuff, and no one can cough up a MilSpec when I ask.
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Well, there's MilSpec, then there's SooperSeecritSpec ( or SSSpec). Materials requiring SSSpec have specifications that conform to WINSI ( often pronounced "wincey") "Whatever It Needs to Support Idiocy"
 
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