Coincidental Thermite Reactions

Yeah it's a problem for both situations. In the 9-11 case, for the thermite reaction to occur you would need one of three things, either removal of the oxide layer (I think alkaline can do this), provision of enough energy to cross the activation energy barrier, or maybe a catalyst.

I'm not sure what sort of temps would be required to exceed Eact (edit: higher temps lower Eact). I'll see if I can find out...

Edit: Well magnesium burns at 650C, melting point of Al is 660C, so in molten form there is the ability for a thermite reaction to procede. But altering the stoichiometry and surface area of the reactants also effects the ability of the reaction to proceed. So what is clear from the demonstration is that simply pouring molten Al onto hot iron the reaction does not become spontaneous (Eact is not breached).


[edit on 23-2-2006 by melatonin]

[edit on 23-2-2006 by melatonin]

Since Greening said that the tests that Jones did weren't sufficient I asked him what test would be sufficient and here was his reply.......

I think crushing the gypsum and making a slurry with a little water is a must. But you could probably melt the aluminum the way Prof. Jones did.... As for doing the test in a laboratory, that is also ok. The burning plastics, etc, are just to cover all the bases since the important thing is to reproduce the conditions in the WTC. However, from the simple chemistry point of view we are looking at the reaction:
2Al + 3CaSO4 -> Al2O3 + 3CaO + 3SO2, which appears to be exothermic, (but you may still need to heat the gypsum!?!)
or:
8AL + 3CaSO4 -> 4Al2O3 + 3CaS, if aluminum is in excess,

but you may need a side reaction between water and aluminum, i.e. a reaction that generates hydrogen, to get the thing started, hence water may in fact be the key...
I really don't have all the answers................ Do you intend to do this test? Or do you know someone who could? Cheers, Frank

I told him that I would have somebody test it and he replied again:

That's great! But, tell your friend to be carefull - these tests are potentially dangerous and I don't want to see anyone getting hurt. If the tests are done properly and nothing happens, I will stand corrected; but I am basing my predictions on articles that are in the literature for anyone to check out. Cheers, Frank
(underlined emphasis his)

So I forwarded this information to Steven Jones and here is his reply:

Great work, Jack! -- I’ll do this test, and probably next Monday…

Steven J

So stay tuned!

voted you way above, jack. amazing.

melatonin, cheers.

in thermite, the metals are powderized, right? isn't this important to making the reaction work? would there be enough loose rust to make a signifigant reaction?

Originally posted by billybob
voted you way above, jack. amazing.

melatonin, cheers.

in thermite, the metals are powderized, right? isn't this important to making the reaction work? would there be enough loose rust to make a signifigant reaction?

Thanks bro!

Yes from what I have seen it comes in a powder like stuff that you ignite. Apparently Greening thinks its important to test his hypothesis and Jones seems willing to oblige. I am very interested in hearing how that turns out.

I suppose your comment in your first post in this thread about the ISP called Everyone's Internet , boils down to the fact that AboveTopSecret.com is also hosted by the same ISP.
What amazed me already in December last year, is the strange appearance of this IP nr : 66.98.176.42...
Is this a hijacked form of ATS ?
With a lot of MySQL warnings and 'URL not found' remarks in the opening page.

When you do a search at www.scroogle.org... which is a much safer form of Googling around (no google-cached private searches!), and you enter the search-term : "everyone's internet" (included the " " ) while you set the number of results to 100, you will find some amazing things regarding this ISP.
They host(ed?) a lot of Al-Qaida supporting sites, and the most amazing thing is that after having been bombarded with emails regarding these facts, they blocked one of these sites (after quite a long unexplained reaction period), but were forced by the US Customs department (strange dep., to say the least) to unblock that site again, they say.
There is much more in those 100 results, also regarding forums discussing last year February the theory about this site being a possible disinfo site.

I suppose that issue has been addressed by the ATS admins and mods already last year, but I seem to be incapable to use the ATS search engine to some extent, I can't find threads regarding the subject yet.
The fact that ATS has a few servers up and running doesn't indicate that these servers are run at the Everyone's Internet premisses in Houston, USA.
They can be located in GB, or elsewhere, and use the IP nrs provided by EV1.

I personnally don't care who or what ATS is, as long as I and you all are allowed to post while following the forum rules, and our posts do not disappear. Mine have not disappeared, so I feel comfortable around here.


Back to dr. F.R. Greening from Canada.
I advise you to read this NIST pdf comment file from him,
wtc.nist.gov...
It is one of the Public Comments on Draft WTC Reports, found at the bottom of this NIST page : wtc.nist.gov...
Also advisable reading is this pdf from him :
His plea to not build or refurbish any new nuclear power plants

To me he seems like a genuinely concerned researcher, with some viable subject lines.
However, I don't think his molten alu thesis does hold ground in the light of the fact that his theory only applies to the WTC tower floors affected by the plane impacts.
Not to the subsequent collapses of unaffected floors.
And the most damning evidence is that stream of molten material streaming out of a window posted so many times by Howard_Roarke.
The color of that material indicates a far higher temperature than molten aluminum, which should show a silvery appearance by the way.
I agree with prof Jones, it is most likely molten iron from a slow proceeding thermite reaction, eating away at core collumns, during the eight minutes before global collapse.

The link to dr. Greening's alu theory provided by billybob in his first post is updated on Feb 20th, 2006, by the way, and doesn't mention the WTC 7 no-alu-plane-hitting anomaly anymore, but it addresses the prof Jones rebuttings to great length now.
I'm also curiously awaiting prof Jones experiments setup on coming monday, Jack Tripper !

To my experience, you need exact stochiometric amounts of the involved reactants, to reach the maximum attainable reaction temperatures, any discounting of stochiometric amounts lowers that temp fairly quickly, and you quickly reach non-reactive temperatures. You also need fine powdered reactants, to get a full blown thermite reaction going at all.
What he indicates are thermite sparks which can occure locally at high impact speeds, but these are in no way accountable for melting through huge WTC collumns.

In his NIST Draft reports comment he also addresses his theory about thermite sparking " providing a source for the bright flash close at the point of impact of the aircraft ".
These flashes were a few meters to the right of the noses of the planes, so why did they not appear at the spot where the plane's alu skin touched down on the WTC wall? They even occured already while the noses of the planes obviously had'nt touched the walls at all.

Howard_Roarke will love to read this one from dr Greening :
www.911myths.com...

Anyone to pick up the glove thrown in the ring by dr Greening?

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...:Collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center

en.wikipedia.org...:Featured_article_candidates/Collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center

wtc.nist.gov...

Anyone to pick up the glove thrown in the ring by dr Greening?



See thread on 911myths??
Gordon.

Originally posted by LaBTop

I'm also curiously awaiting prof Jones experiments setup on coming monday, Jack Tripper !

Just got the email from Jones.

The experiments have been performed according to Greening's requirements and as expected..........no reaction.

This will be posted on his paper shortly but he sent me the info in advance!

We did the experiments this afternoon, with photos (to come later) -- Here’s a brief summary:



Next we tested ideas of Greening (discussed in a paper on our website). This time I did two more tests:

1. Crushed gypsum (from drywall) mixed with crushed concrete and plastic pieces and placed on a very rusty steel channel thrown in to cover all the bases -- trying to reproduce conditions as might be found in the WTC. Greening’s idea is that molten aluminum from a plane might hit these materials and lead to violent reactions, culminating in Tower Collapses!

However, the experiment showed no violent or even visible reactions. The molten aluminum flowed around the materials with no obvious reactions at all.

2. The mix described above was repeated, and this time mixed as a slurry in water. Greening suggested that molten aluminum plus water might generate hydrogen, perhaps to get reactions started. And there could have been water in the WTC.


Again, the experiment showed no violent or even visible reactions, except that some steam was generated. No flame whatever in either experimental test. The molten aluminum flowed around the materials with no obvious reactions at all.

Steven J

So I'm going to hold Greening to his promise of "standing corrected"!