Dr. Harrit´s Aluminum Data

John-Michael Talboo and Ziggi Zugam cover the whole Harrit VS Millette debate in an essay written for Mark Basile´s fundraising effort: http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-you-should-make-donation-at.html

Part IV: The Elemental Aluminum. So, how does Dr. Millette justify the lack of replication? He essentially states that further testing is unnecessary because there is "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. But as we have previously noted, Millette is probably not studying the same material as Harrit et al. - and in this case Millette may have found kaolin because he is focusing on the paint chips also present in the dust, despite Kevin Ryan´s specific warning. Kaolin plates may look very similar to coated aluminum platelets, but Millette finds kaolin plates as thin as 6 nm while Harrit et al. report consistent platelets "approximately 40 nm thick." Millette and his sponsors should have known that they could expect to find the aluminum in the correct chips hidden inside a protective coating based on silicon. They have failed to read the excellent references that Harrit et al. cite, including this one which explains that the coating is "essential to protect aluminum nanopowder.." and that it "leads to better dispersion...and more uniform mixing." The protective layer not only promotes efficiency, it also prevents air-oxidation and humidity from deactivating the elemental aluminum, which explains how the chips could remain active for so many years.

Harrit et al. agree that their chips contain aluminum and silicon together in the same space, but how do they determine whether or not the two chemicals are separate or chemically bound together as kaolin? As we note in Part II, when you compare the signals for Al/Si before and after ignition, you see that the peaks no longer have the same ratio after ignition and that the aluminum is relatively depleted, which is not consistent with a compound. And the team discovered that MEK paint-solvent induces swelling in their chips that segregates the silicon from the aluminum, which proves that they are not chemically bound together, so the plates in their chips are not kaolin. This is confirmed with chemical analysis and clear visual representations, but the "debunkers" ignore this important result. They claim that the main chips studied (chips "a to d" depicted in fig.7) are LaClede primer-paint that contains kaolin, and that the MEK chip is another type of paint (Tnemec) that does not have kaolin. Adam Taylor notes in his March 2011 article that the source for this MEK hand-wave is Sunstealer´s March 2011 post where he announces that the XEDS spectrum for the MEK chip (fig.14) looks very similar to the spectrum for Tnemec primer-paint. But as Taylor explains, the XEDS spectrum for the MEK chip represents the unwashed and contaminated surface, while the spectra for the other chips represent clean surfaces. The contaminants happen to make the unwashed MEK chip look like Tnemec, but Sunstealer´s rationale is essentially pretending that there is no contamination. 

 

ScootleRoyale´s excellent March 2012 article also demolishes Sunstealer´s premise for this theory, because the unwashed surface of all the studied chips had a spectrum similar to the unwashed MEK chip according to one of the authors of the study, including the chips featured in the paper (in figure 7). ScootleRoyale also demonstrates to Oystein how untenable the MEK hand-wave is by noting the fact that the MEK solvent does not dissolve or soften the chip, unlike confirmed Tnemec chips: "The reason Harrit et al. soaked a chip in MEK was to compare the result to Tnemec primer!" 

Talboo and Weathers also demonstrate in their May 2011 article that Sunstealer´s MEK Hand-wave is an obvious failure because there is no elemental aluminum in Tnemec, only aluminum bound to calcium. Tnemec also contains zinc, but the MEK chip only has Zn and Ca as surface contaminants which disappear after the wash in the MEK. Talboo and Weathers respond to Oystein´s objections to Taylor´s article, including his claim that Harrit et al. simply could not register Zn and Ca with their equipment settings for the recorded spectra after the MEK soak. Unfortunately for Oystein, his fellow JREF´er has debunked his claim and confirmed that Harrit´s equipment would have registered the Zn and the Ca. Talboo and Weathers also note that Dr. Farrer debunks Oystein´s claim that they mislabeled Zn as sodium(Na). According to Farrer, the sodium "peak that is found in fig 18 was confirmed by the absence of the Zn k-alpha peak at 8.637keV (and yes, the same exact spot was analyzed at a beam energy of 20kV and the Zn k-alpha peak is still not present)." Farrer goes on to say that "while it is true that the Na k-alpha peak (1.04keV) overlaps the Zn L-alpha (1.012keV), it is pretty simple to confirm which element is present."

After soaking the MEK chip, Harrit et al. focus on an area with a lot of aluminum to figure out if there is elemental aluminum present. They confirm the presence of elemental aluminum with the XEDS spectrum in figure 17, stating that "a conventional quantification routine" demonstrates "that the aluminum significantly exceeded the oxygen present (approximately a 3:1 ratio)." Figure 17 also demonstrates that the post-soaking MEK chip has a very strong aluminum signal without any Ca or Si present for bonding, so the MEK chip cannot be Tnemec or LaClede, and the conclusion of elemental aluminum is inescapable. See the articles Listening to Debunker Arguments is Like Watching Paint Dry..., Listening to Debunker Arguments is Like Watching Two Coats of Paint Dry..., Millette Versus Harrit et al: The MEK Test, and Oystein's Contamination Denial for more information, and keep in mind Dr. Jones´s message to Sunstealer et al.:

Look, Oystein, why don't you put a sample of Tnemec primer in MEK and soak it, and see whether it becomes limp (as I say) or remains very hard under forceps? Do debunkers ever do experiments? I say, do the experiment and let us know what you find! Experiments are much more convincing in science than hand-waving arguments.

 

Denis Rancourt has suggested that the XEDS sample-holder provides the aluminum signal, but Harrit notes that their control experiments prove that "the electron beam couldn’t even penetrate the carbon conductive tab used as substratum..." In other words, "the Al/Mg scaffold was never hit in any of the spectral recordings published in the article." Harrit also mentions that they have unpublished TEM analysis where "the samples were mounted on a copper holder and these measurements also confirm the presence of aluminum." According to Dr. Jones, their unpublished analysis via TEM and XRD is consistent with their previous (MEK test) conclusion of ruling out kaolin, but he notes that the new tests have not resulted in conclusive identification of pure aluminum - According to Jones, the aluminum might be in an amorphous form that is difficult to detect.

Basile plans to introduce one new test method (ESCA small spot technique with argon ion sputter) to directly establish the presence of unbound aluminum. Basile also plans to confirm aluminum by having an independent laboratory repeat the ignition tests, in air and inert atmosphere. He notes in a December 2012 interview (at 37m.55s.) that the chips will most likely also ignite in an inert atmosphere, and that even if they do not, that this test will still reveal any elemental aluminum since it will melt and leave a signature endothermic peak at a certain temperature. ScootleRoyale notes in his March 2012 article that that two of Harrit´s air-ignited samples have an endothermic peak around the 660 degree(C) melting point of aluminum, which is another strong indication of elemental aluminum:


 

"Notice how two of the traces go into the negative at around 620-670 degrees celsius. A small endothermic peak in this temperature range is characteristic of aluminium melting. This suggests that even after the reaction, there was still some elemental aluminium left over in those chips, which then melted." - Scootle
 

The fact that the chips actually work when ignited is also a very strong indication of elemental aluminum, according to one of Harrit´s co-authors, Dr. Frank Legge. Dr. Legge, who holds a PhD in chemistry, has stated that:

 

...The existence of elemental aluminium in the red chips is proven by the formation of the microspheres in the DSC, largely iron. What else can start to rip the oxygen out of iron oxide at below 400 deg C, then have a runaway temperature increase at least to the melting point of iron? Those who dispute this on the grounds that oxygen was present, and that the energy came from the combustion of organic material, must provide an explanation for why such special conditions are required in a blast furnace to produce iron. The idea that you could heat a little kaolin and coke and iron oxide to a mere 400 deg C and see it suddenly run away and produce molten iron is clearly a fantasy. http://www.thepotteries.org/shelton/blast_furnace.htm

How to Distinguish Thermitic Red/Gray Chips from Red/Gray Paint Chips in the WTC Dust

John-Michael Talboo and Ziggi Zugam cover the whole Harrit VS Millette debate in an essay written for Mark Basile´s fundraising effort: http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-you-should-make-donation-at.html

Harrit et al reported the finding of Active Thermitic Red/Gray Chips in the WTC dust, in a peer-reviewed 2009 paper. But the notion that all red/gray chips found in the WTC dust are the thermitic chips in question is a common misunderstanding, that was perhaps spread around by supporters of Dr. Millette´s "replication study" that had been planned for 2012, but never delivered. Millette claims in is preliminary report that he found paint chips, but his lack of care in selecting the correct "chips of interest" may have doomed Millette´s study as a failure before it even started. This may be why Dr. Millette never moved on to complete the study and publish it in a reviewed journal, even though Chris Mohr had promised that "the results will soon be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal."

Some may try to argue that the Truth Movement invented this problem of multiple kinds of chips in the dust as an afterthought in response to Millette´s March 2012 preliminary report, but Reverend Chris Mohr, who commissioned Millette´s study, reveals on January 10, 2013, that one of Harrit´s co-authors made them aware of this issue before the study commenced:

"...when Kevin Ryan was still talking to me, he said that he has in his possession both red-grey paint chips and red-grey thermitic chips, "and I can tell you they are not the same." He claimed that they look different to the eye, but more importantly, that the thermitic chips have an exothermic quality that the paint chips don't. Unfortunately, he refused to release the samples to me or Millette, and our personal connection broke down around that time. I was never able to get samples of these different kinds of chips, or more info about them in relation to the Bentham paper. Nor did I know at that time about the two different types of paint primer in use at WTC..." http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=8905229&postcount=1181

One of Dr. Harrit´s co-authors, Dr. Steven Jones, talks about the many different chips in the dust, and notes the same exothermic difference on September 8, 2012, in a public letter on 911blogger:

"...James Millette did NOT do DSC analyses at all for his report MVA9119. What a shame, really, and I hope you will do better as you propose....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...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...." http://911blogger.com/news/2012-09-08/letter-regarding-redgray-chip-analyses

Another co-author, Dr. Jeff Farrer, notes in a 2010 interview that these tests confirm that paints demonstrate completely different behavior in the DSC ignition tests:
"There have been some who have argued that these red/gray chips could be paint of some form. We did a study on some epoxy paint. We put that in the DSC. We found that paint would just burn up and turn to ash. You may get a minor exothermic peak but it is not energetic. It is a very smooth wide peak and it is certainly not an energetic material. As part of the actual paint [WTC] that we ignited in the DSC, it was basically ash. There were no micro-spheres found. We also took paint that came off of the WTC steel and looked at that in the scanning electron microscope and did compositional analysis of that and found that it was not similar to the red layer of the red/gray chips. The red/gray chips are not the primer paint that was used on the WTC steel." http://s1.zetaboards.com/LooseChangeForums/single/?p=474481&t=242875

Chemist Mark Basile has performed the same tests independently, and in a 911FreeFall interview on December 27, 2012, he states that:
"There are a lot of paint chips in the dust! You should make that perfectly clear! Just when you, if anybody in the audience, let's say, would get out there and get a World Trade Center dust sample, and they pull out red chips from this, I'm not telling anybody in the world that every red chip you're gonna pull out of there is one of these nano-thermite chips. The vast majority of them actually are primer paint, from what I'm finding, but that doesn't mean they all are." http://www.911freefall.com/2012/12/mark-basile-and-wtc-dust.html

One would be forgiven to think that the careful selection of chips goes without saying, as well as the following of the protocol set out in the Harrit et al paper, but some people have decided that muddying the water is in their interest. Harrit et al clearly set out several ways to identify the correct chips, and comments by Dr. Jones and Dr. Farrer in the sources cited above make things even clearer. The many different ways to identify the correct thermitic chips are not hard to understand and follow:

- To experienced researchers, the texture of the correct red material is visually distinctive.
- The chips are brittle and tend to cleave and fragment in certain ways.
-  Resistivity testing shows a huge difference between this material and paints. (Millette did not perform this test.)
- The MEK test reveals how porous the red material is, and that it remains hard even after more than 50 hours of soaking, while paints become soft and limp. (Dr. Millette´s chips become soft when soaked in MEK.)
- The MEK soaking disrupts the red matrix material and shows that the aluminum in the platelets is not bound to the silicon, which demonstrates elemental aluminum and rules out kaolin. (Millette´s chips do not show this disruption and he claims to find kaolin.)
- The red material XEDS signature does have some common elements with some paints, and Millette´s chips, but Dr. Jones notes that the devil is in the details.
- The ignition tests reveal a dramatic difference between the thermitic chips and paints. (Millette did not perform these tests.)
 - Dr. Frank Legge, another co-author of Harrit´s paper, even notes that the gray layer can also be distinctive, since the iron-oxide gray layer of their chips does not match Millette´s metallic gray layer.

It should be noted that some people may still try to argue that Harrit and Millette studied the same chips and that they are indeed WTC paint, but besides all the points outlined above, these people tend to stay silent about the fact that only two different WTC paints have been identified (Tnemec and LaClede), and that even Millette himself rules out both. As noted in Part III of our essay, Millette admits that "..none of the 177 different [Tnemec]coatings are a match for the red layer coating found in this study." We add that even though LaClede does have some of the same basic ingredients as both Harrit´s and Millette´s chips, the composition does not match in either case because the quantities of those ingredients do not match and there are also other differences. Millette´s TEM analysis, for example, fails to identify the expected strontium chromate in his chips. Chris Mohr summed up the problem when he stated that:

 "OK but Jim Millette specifically said to me, unequivocally, NO STRONTIUM CHROMATE. It was clear to me that he looked and he did not find it. I wouldn't bet my nuts on it being LaClede." 

Open letter to the Firefighter community and their families

ReThink911.org Information Leafleting and Stickering

9-11 Truth for Peace