A 2009 Paper Claims to Have Found Explosive Material
in Dust from the 9/11 Tragedy

Fig. 24: "Spheres formed during ignition of commercial thermite, with corresponding typical XEDS spectrum"
Fig. 25: "Spheres formed during ignition of red/gray chip in DSC, with corresponding typical XEDS spectrum ..."
Fig. 27 and 28: "Spheres extracted from WTC dust" and "XEDS spectrum from a sphere found in the WTC dust"

Even some of the most ardent supporters of the paint-hypothesis have admitted that no-one has ever documented examples of paints leaving behind those molten spheres:   Ivan Kminek 7. Mai 2012 08:53:

"no, we have not found any paper dealing with the formation of iron-rich microspheres during burning of any paint."

Oystein24. Mai 2012 13:08: 4

"So how do I explain Fig 21 (high Fe, low O, post DSC), within my framework? I can't at this time..."

 

 

Kminek also realized that the gray layer of the chips could not produce the spheres in the DSC, since it reached less than half the required temperature, and Oystein saw through the fraudulent experiment using a high-temperature gas-lighter and steel wool to produce spheres, see comment #49. Click here, here, here, here, and here, for rebuttals to fly-ash, ultra low melting temperature of nano metals, amusing tales of hurricane winds and other 'debunkers' who were not so willing to accept being stumped.

Fig. (20). Photomicrographs of residues from red/gray chips ignited in the DSC. Notice the shiny-metallic spheres and also the translucent spheres. Each blue scale-marker represents 50 microns.

As Harrit et al. state: "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."

No-one has been able to do that, but the controversial people from the "911forum" at JREF claim that they have funded an independent scientist to publish a study that will replicate the paper, and meet the challenge for a prosaic substance: James R. Millette, Ph.D., of MVA Scientific Consultants, published a preliminary report in March 2012, that is supposed to refute the findings of the 2009 paper, concluding that; "The red/gray chips found in the WTC dust at four sites in New York City are consistent with a carbon steel coated with an epoxy resin that contains primarily iron oxide and kaolin clay pigments."

In other words, he is claiming they are simply a form of paint adhered to fragments of steel. Unfortunately for those of us interested in the truth of the matter, Millette is neither independent nor free from conflicts of interest: He worked on the original WTC dust-studies, commissioned by the EPA, that somehow overlooked the abundant molten spheres, the toxic nature of the dust, and the danger to the first responders - a whistle-blower has accused the EPA of fraud. So, quite predictably, Millette does not include the most important ignition-related tests in the study, and makes no attempt to replicate the explosive results with paint to meet Harrit´s challenge for a prosaic substance. He does not even mention the issue of the molten spheres, which Harrit´s team observed after igniting their chips at about 430°C - but iron melts at around 1,538°C. This is evidence of a high temperature chemical reaction, which should not happen with any variety of paint. Millette´s preliminary report also fails to deliver a credible response to Harrit´s team in several other ways:

Harrit et al also mentioned another version of the chips in the dust, in very thin, stacked, multilayer structures, in addition to the chips examined in the paper. When a blogger discovered a patent described as looking "like the manual for what was found in the WTC dust" in July, 2012, the paper's third author, physicist Dr. Steven Jones, PhD., commented, "It is difficult to see how a 'paint' applied to steel could result in such multiple-layered chips as we observed in the WTC dust. Have debunkers even attempted to account for the multiple-layered chips which we reported finding in the WTC dust? --> Any other study of the red-gray chips which fails to replicate our finding of multiple-layered red-gray chips is seen to be INCOMPLETE at best."

In a comment elsewhere Jones stated:

James Millette did NOT do DSC analyses at all for his report MVA9119. What a shame, really...

When Dr Farrer burned epoxy paint in the DSC, it gave a very broad thermal trace, NOT at all like the spiked exothermic DSC peak in our Fig 19. This is one of the many tests he did to check things.

Also, we checked the electrical resistivity of several paints – consistently orders of magnitude higher than that of the red material. We reported the resistivity of the red material in our paper, page 27 in the Journal. Millette did not report any electrical resistivity measurements. This measurement is rather easy to do so I was surprised when he failed to do this straightforward test. There is a lot of red material of various types in the WTC dust, so one must be careful to make sure it is the same as what we studied, and not some other material.

The original paper also reports that paint samples as well as the red chips were heated with an oxy-acetylene torch and that the paint samples "immediately reduced to fragile ashes," but "this was not the case, however, with any of the red/gray chips from the World Trade Center dust." As one commentor on a forum asked, "Do you think Millette et al can swing a few bucks for an oxyacetylene torch, a graphite block, and a pair of tweezers?" Similarly, John-Michael stated on May 3rd 2011, "Of course 'debunkers' could easily prove the paper wrong, in part, by simply getting an oxy-acetylene torch and burning up some primer paints."

Two videos of red chip ignitions:

One of the paper's authors, chemist Kevin Ryan, has even made nano-thermite at home and compared it to the red chips. Here is a 26 picture slide show Ryan produced, half of the images are nano-thermite residues and half are materials extracted from WTC dust samples. Can you tell which ones are which?

So, how does Millette justify the lack of research and replication? His conclusion stems from his claim of "no evidence of individual elemental aluminum particles of any size in the red/gray chips, therefore the red layer of the red/gray chips is not thermite or nano-thermite." Millette claims that the plates of silicon and aluminum inside the chips are kaolin, which is a clay material that happens to be a common ingredient in paints. Harrit et al agree that the chips contain aluminum and silicon together in the same space - so the question is, are the two chemicals separate or chemically bound together? Harrit et al discovered that MEK paint-solvent induces swelling in the chips that segregates the silicon from the elemental aluminum, which demonstrates that they are not chemically bound together. This is confirmed with chemical analysis and clear visual representations. See the articles "Millette Versus Harrit et al: The MEK Test,"  and "Oystein's Contamination Denial" for more info.

Dr. Steven Jones recently noted that later unpublished analysis via TEM and XRD is also consistent with their previous results from the MEK test. The fact that the chips actually work when ignited is also a strong indication of elemental aluminum. Millette and the debunkers should have known that they could expect to find the elemental aluminum hidden inside a silicon-based material, as mentioned in a debate at the 911forum: Harrit et al refer to several papers confirming that superthermite incendiaries/explosives use silicon for this purpose, among others. The "debunkers" have either failed to read or understand the excellent references, including this one, "Protective organic coating with hydrophobic groups is essential to protect aluminum nanopowder from the reaction with moisture at higher relative humidity levels...Silane coating leads to better dispersion of nanopowders and more uniform mixing."

Millette´s followers insist that his FTIR data confirms paint and rules out nanothermite, but they keep reaching conclusions without proper research. Since superthermite is available in fully organic forms, hybrid forms like Harrit´s chips with high organic content, and even mixed with paint epoxy, any competent researcher would have to compare the FTIR spectra of the red/gray chips to these hybrid forms of superthermite: Millette´s relevant FTIR data is not only flawed, it also lacks all the needed research and comparisons, so it is inconclusive, if not fully debunked. See comments by Ziggi on this issue: here, here, here, here, and here.  

Another problem with the paint hypothesis, is that NIST specified the Tremec primer-paint used on the towers, and Harrit specifically ruled out this primer in a paper dedicated to that issue in particular. Some have noted that there may have been another primer, called LaClede, but the chemical composition does not match the chips either, no matter how promising it may have initially seemed. Chris Mohr, who commissioned the Millette study, and his main supporter, Oystein, have already acknowledged this problem, as Mohr so succintly put it: "It was clear to me that he looked and he did not find it. I wouldn't bet my nuts on it being LaClede."

Kevin Ryan, one of Harrit´s team members, has noted that Millette´s supposed refutation of Harrit et al. has been invalid from the start because he is most likely not even testing the same material: "Steel primer paints must be resistant to fire and withstand temperatures well over 700 C, so we know that the diversionary claims about primer paint are not true...Millettte’s samples “ashed” at or below 400 C and therefore are not only not red/gray chips (which ignite at 430 C and form spheres identical to those from thermitic reactions) but are also not primer paint from the WTC. But he pretty much admits that."

The final problem with Millette´s paint-hypothesis is that even if he proves that the chips contain paint-epoxy, that would not rule out thermitic materials, as JREF forum member "Sunstealer" discovered: He stumbled upon a paper dealing with thermitic materials that are diluted with standard epoxy, up to 50% by weight and 80% by volume, so there is actually such a thing as functional nano-thermite mixed with paint.This reference certainly refutes Millette's contention that finding normal epoxy mixed in with the chips would rule out superthermite.

Millette will have to address all these issues if he wants a proper peer-reviewed journal to actually publish a study that could even begin to debunk Harrit et al. As Ziggi put it, commenting on the blog of one of Millette's biggest supporters: "Dear Oystein, if you are going to prove that the chips are tremec and/or laclede paints, then you have to demonstrate that samples of these paints behave in the same way as the red/gray chips when tested... the tested samples of tremec/laclede have to ignite at 430, replicate the exotherms in DSC, and leave molten metal spheres after ignition.

We cannot seriously consider the paint hypothesis until someone performs these seemingly easy tests and publishes the results, as Steven Jones noted in his public challenge to "debunkers" in 2009 - and still we wait. They are not likely to do that any time soon, as is evident by Millette's lack of interest in completing and publishing the report, and failure to do the tests. In what was described on the JREF forum as "the first truther's article reacting to Jim Millette's study," John-Michael outlined what tests should be done by Millette for his then still unreleased report. Talboo stated that "if all of this is done" that "the original study" could be "effectively debunked." It wasn't.

This is why we are helping to spearhead a fundraising effort for chemical engineer Mark Basile. Basile has already replicated and confirmed some of the results by Harrit et al in a seperate study of the red/gray chips, but he hasn't published peer-reviewed results yet. Most importantly, Basile is willing to do a true replication study using "an independent lab that has no idea that the dust is from the WTC or from 9/11."

From Basile's Proposal of Analytical Work

- Red/gray chip separation using optical microscopy and magnetic attraction to assist in isolation of particles of interest.

- Optical images of collected particulates as collected at appropriate magnifications to record condition as collected.

Sample Analysis:

- SEM/EDX with elemental quantification of red/gray chips, both red and gray layers.

- FTIR analysis of organic components of red/gray chips, both red and gray layers.

- ESCA small spot technique with argon ion sputter for depth profiling to definitively establish the presence of elemental aluminum within the red layer of the red/gray chips. Scans of gray layer also to be taken to add to information base.

- DSC analysis of red/gray chips focusing on exothermic/endothermic reactions near 400 degrees C. Some chips to be scanned in inert atmosphere and some in air or oxygen containing gas stream.

- SEM/EDX with elemental quantification of residual products of DSC analysis of red/gray chips.

- Optical images of reaction products after DSC experiments.

Analytical Costs:

The following work is in need of funding to be run at independent facilities.

- DSC costs are $190 per scan and an estimated 5 to 20 scans are desired, to look at the following materials in both air and inert atmospheres;

2 samples each of known building primer paint

2 samples each of red chips of suspected primer from building dust

5 sample each of red/gray chips or red layer only from red/gray chips

-ESCA costs are $330 per hour and a total of 4 to 8 hours is desired. This should allow for evaluation of at least two known thermitic red/gray chips with some sputtering for depth profile information as well.

This is the definitive study we need to settle this issue, so please donate at www.MarkBasile.org/donate   Scarcity of dust is making it difficult to perform and repeat all the required tests, so if you know someone who collected some of the dust that covered New York City after 9/11, please get them in contact with John-Michael Talboo at jtalboo@ae911truth.org

Paint chip blue.mp4

Paint chip red.mp4

 

www.MarkBasile.org