Aluminothermics and "Thermite"

Originally posted by Griff

Originally posted by ULTIMA1

Scientific analysis would be needed to conclusively ascertain the composition of the molten metal in detail.

Which was never done BTW. Anyway, what does the exothermic reactions have to do with what we were talking about with pouring molten aluminum onto concrete?

It is being done by Steven Jones and the reults are not only shocking but totally damming.

Yeah, I actually ment by FEMA, NIST, 9/11 commission or Silverstein. It's funny how FEMA states it needed to be done but everyone ignores it.

Originally posted by ULTIMA1
Did you ever think the planes themselves caused thermite reactions ?

You have got tons of aluminum, steel and lots of hazards material on the aircraft.

yes, all the ingedients are present so I think this is actually quite likely. The plane was travelling approx. 500mph, slamming into that building would of generated a tremendous amount of friction and filings of aluminium. Also the impact would of probably knocked much rust off surfaces allowing them to mix. The friction generated by the crash would of created a huge amount heat (how much is hard to tell, but considering it was travelling at 500mph you can expect a pretty high temperature) which may of been enough to spark the reaction. We have all taken a coke can and bent it back and forth, noticing how quickly the center of the bend becomes surprisingly hot. Consider that with the chaotic dynamics of a plane hitting a building at 500mph! Normal thermite is pretty simple stuff really, some aluminium filings, rust and a trigger (albeit a very hot trigger). As I have stated before Al drill tips are enough to spark a thermite fire on a rusty surface. Also the thermite has only been observed around the crash zone.

Still i do not totally rule out aluminothermics as a cutter charge.

Also, notice how much the edge of the building is damaged from the plane impact, it could quite of easily made a path to the outside for thermite to run through.


[edit on 22-10-2006 by Insolubrious]

Originally posted by Slap Nuts

2. ThermAte burns minimally 2x-10x as hot and fast as thermIte (depends on formula)... Reduce their calculations by 1/2 minimally or 1/10th.

3. NANO-thermAte... typical aluminum particles have only 1/10th of 1% of their atoms exposed on the surface. Whereas, nano-particulates, have almost 50% of their surface exposed as atoms, increasing reaction rates by 1,000x.

So... you tell me... MINIMALLY Nano-thermate has reaction rates 1000x faster and 2x hotter than "thermite"... do you really need that much?

Where exactly are you getting these numbers?

What is your source for nanothermate being "1000x faster and 2x hotter than "thermite"?

And really that doesnt change the amount needed by much as far as I can tell. You still need X amount of "alminothermics" to melt Y amount of iron, regardless of the speed or heat of the reaction.

About the only thing the nanothermite would do according to your explanation is melt through things faster.

If this is true, then why don't we see the material in the tower cutting through the floors of the WTC tower at 1000 times the speed of normal thermite cutting through similar material?

[edit on 24-10-2006 by LeftBehind]

Originally posted by LeftBehind
And really that doesnt change the amount needed by much as far as I can tell. You still need X amount of "alminothermics" to melt Y amount of iron, regardless of the speed or heat of the reaction.

About the only thing the nanothermite would do according to your explanation is melt through things faster.

Here is what I've found out.

Nanotechnologies’ 50nm Al product has a specific surface area (SSA) of 39.9m2/g while Suvaci et. al [59] presented data for a 2-5μm Al powder with a SSA of 1.24m2/g. This is a 3000% increase in SSA from micron to nano-sized Al and this trend will only increase for larger micron-sized Al particles.

Source: etd.lib.ttu.edu...

So, nanothermates have a 3000% increase in specific surface area. If I am reading this right, then the contact surface area between the steel and nanothermate would be reduced by alot.

Nanothermate has a SSA of 39.9m2/g ...that's 39.9 meter squared per gram.

As oppossed to:

Thermite has a SSA of 1.23m2/g..that's 1.23 meter squared per gram.

There are 907,184.74 grams in a ton (US).

So a ton (2000 lbs) of thermite has a SSA of 1,115,837.23 square meters.

A ton of nanothermate has a SSA of 36,196,671.13 square meters.

That's a little over 32x more surface area that is affected. So, if it would take a ton (2000 lbs.) of thermite to do the job, it would only take 61.65 lbs of nanothermate to do the same job.

This is if I am reading this correctly...I'm not a chemist nor a mechanical engineer so my assumptions could be wrong.

As far as I can tell, a higher SSA means a more uniform powder making it easier and more efficient to apply, I can't find anything referring to SSA haveing an effect on chemical reactions.

I will look more when I return from work.


And for the sake of accuracy, can we wait until a source is confirmed for the 1000x reaction speed, and double the temperature, before we start spreading it around on the board like it's a fact?

Thanks.



[edit on 26-10-2006 by LeftBehind]

Originally posted by LeftBehind
As far as I can tell, a higher SSA means a more uniform powder making it easier and more efficient to apply, I can't find anything referring to SSA haveing an effect on chemical reactions.

I didn't post that for the chemical reaction rate. I posted it to show that the same amount of nanothermate could do more work than thermite.

If you had taken the time to read the article (I know it's big and I'm not putting you down for not reading) but in the same paragraph I posted it says:

Models described by of Cabrera et al. [10] and Dreizen et al. [60] state that the oxidation reaction of Al is directional proportional to oxygen-aluminum contact surface area. For this reason the increased surface area of the nm-Al spheres allow much faster burn rates than micron-Al spheres

increased surface to volume ratio promotes more simultaneous reaction locations thus decreasing the global reaction time

There are several advantages to nanocomposite thermites reactants that are still being tested to better explain observed phenomenon. A few advantages of nano-particles influence on thermite reactions are listed below (it is noted that there are several characteristics of nanoparticles that are not listed that may contribution to faster and hotter thermite reactions).
1) decreased diffusion distances between fuel and oxidizer particles promoting faster reaction rates
2) improved heterogeneity of fuel and oxidizer particles promoting more complete and stoichiometric reactions (producing Δhrxn values closer to theoretical calculations based on ideal conditions)

Source:
etd.lib.ttu.edu...

Stoichiometric :

Calculation of the quantities of reactants and products in a chemical reaction.

Source: dictionary.reference.com...

I know it doesn't say 1000x so you'll probably say that it still doesn't prove it.

I will look more when I return from work.

Please do. We need all the investigators we can get...even if we don't agree, the truth is truth no matter what.

And for the sake of accuracy, can we wait until a source is confirmed for the 1000x reaction speed, and double the temperature, before we start spreading it around on the board like it's a fact?

Fair enough. But I'm getting close.

I didn't post that for the chemical reaction rate. I posted it to show that the same amount of nanothermate could do more work than thermite.

Again, while the "nanoaluminothermics" might indeed produce a faster reaction rate, it still would require nearly the same amount to produce a given amount of molten iron.


For instance, if I had two candles, one regular, and one "nanocandle" that burned 1000 times as fast as the normal candle, and both were the same size, I would end up with roughly the same pool of wax once they were completely burned. If anything, the faster one would produce less wax.


A thermite reaction, nano or otherwise acts the same way, which is

Fe2O3(s) + 2 Al(s) => Al2O3(s) + 2 Fe(l)

www.ilpi.com...

So while it makes sense that using "nano" powders it can make a more efficient reaction, only so much molten material can be created by a given amount of any thermite mixture.

Also, if one wants to use the pools of molten metal in the debris for weeks as proof of thermite, then it certainly requires tons of any type of "Aluminothermics", it would require an even more massive amount if it was a "nanothermate" that burned 1000 times faster.




[edit on 26-10-2006 by LeftBehind]

You could be right about the amount. I'll leave that to Slap Nutz since he's the one who posted it to begin with and I'm not a chemist. I haven't taken chemistry in over 10 years, so I'll leave it at that.

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Also, if one wants to use the pools of molten metal in the debris for weeks as proof of thermite, then it certainly requires tons of any type of "Aluminothermics", it would require an even more massive amount if it was a "nanothermate" that burned 1000 times faster.

Well, if one wants to use the pools of molten metal as proof that fire brought the towers down, then they are dilusional. Plus, don't forget that it could have started with aluminothermics and continued to oxidize once the aluminothermics ran out. So, no it doesn't prove anything, positive OR negative.

Question: Why wasn't the slag from this molten metal tested? You can't say because they didn't feel the need. It was molten for at least weeks. That in itself is an anomaly and should have been investigated as to why it was molten for weeks. Even FEMA said it needed further investigation, only to be ignored by everyone. Including the NIST who we paid millions of dollars to investigate these types of things.

Let's take your candle scenario for a spin again. Only instead of a candle, let's use bunson burners.

OK...we have 2 bunson burners. One set up to have a blue/white flame and the other to have a red/orange flame.

Let's melt something with them...anything. Which one do you think will take more fuel (i.e. aluminothermics) to completely melt the substance? You guessed it, the one with the hotter flame (blue/white). So, reaction temperature DOES in fact correlate to how much fuel (aluminothermics) it takes.

Nanothermate burns hotter than thermite. So, right there there would be less needed.