Niels Harrit says that the chips they studied are not primer paint from WTC steel.

[eomer]

These would be the chips, of course, that they concluded are probably some form of nano-thermite, as described in the article, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe.

I transcribed from about 2:41 to 5:02 in a recent YouTube video of a Russia Today TV interview of Harrit:

Harrit: One thing which has been mentioned frequently in the discussion following our publication is that this could be the primer paint which was applied to the steel beams in order to prevent corrosion. And many of the ingredients are the same in terms of iron oxide, as I told you, which is the red color you see in steel beams usually when it's protected -- it's the iron oxide. So some of the chemicals in there are the same. But the composition of the primer paint used -- there are two very good reasons for this not being paint, in my opinion.

One is that the chemical composition of the primer paint used at World Trade Center, according to NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is vastly different from which we're seeing. To be specific, I say, we're missing large amounts of chromium, zinc, and magnesium.

Next, which can be understood by everyone, is that the paint applied on the steel beams are stable to elevated temperatures. NIST did experiments with the steel beams because they wanted to use the appearance of the paint as a measure for the temperature the steel beams had been exposed to. And, let me be specific, so when you heat up this steel beam, at 250 degrees Centigrade it starts cracking. This is because the steel expands more than the paint. So they get what they call "mud cracks". And they keep on cracking until a temperature of about 650 degrees, where it starts peeling off and forming scales. This continues to about 800 degrees, when the scaling becomes excessive, but it does not burn. So the paint on the steel beams is stable beyond 800 degrees Centigrade.

Now the stuff we have found ignites at 430 degrees Centigrade. So it is not the primer paint.

Edit to add: Here is a recent letter from Harrit that goes into further detail on the same question:
http://stj911.org/blog/?p=325

[wildbilln864]

1. Thank you. nt

[Subdivisions]

2. Whether this study and its findings are valid or not,

it means nothing until the findings are independently confirmed and published in a REAL, relevant scientific journal.

I'm getting closer and closer to posting a declaration re: Jones, Gage, Griffin, et. al. Giving it more thought and research first.

[vincent_vega_lives]

14. Richard Gage, AIA

Ninety thousand tons of struct... of concrete has been pulverized to a fine talcum powder, though these uhh, intense explosions, including its metal decking and the floor trusses that were supporting, it, uhh completely gone and blown outside the perimeter.

Gage's Assumtions:

1. All the concrete was pulverized to fine powder.

2. All the floor trusses and metal decking were pulverized.

3. All the concrete, floor trusses and metal decking were completely gone and blown outside the perimeter of the buildings' footprints.

4. This was acomplished by "intense explosions".

That's quite the analysis on what happened on 9-11.

Unfortunately none of these statements are based on fact. Mr Gage clearly does not understand the energy released during the collapse of WTC towers 1 & 2. Its very unfortunate.

[SDuderstadt]

17. We can hardly wait for your "declaration", Subdivisions...

I'm certain it will be earth-shattering. Did you finally figure out that Jones, Gage and Griffin, et al are taking you and other "truthers" for a ride?

[LARED]

3. deleted

[LARED]

4. I'm calling nonsense

So the paint on the steel beams is stable beyond 800 degrees Centigrade.

No way is primer paint stable to 800 C.

Also the stuff tested at 420 deg C was under a forced air supply making any comparison to paint on a beam meaningless.

[eomer]

5. Well, your argument with Harrit is over what he called it, perhaps, but not with his conclusion.

He is probably wrong to call it primer paint.

NIST says:

The paint was essentially a ceramic coating, consisting predominantly of iron oxides with small additions of other oxides that provide color, and silica sand.

If you disagree that the paint was stable to 800 °C then your disagreement is with NIST:

Beyond approximately 650 °C (plus or minus approximately 50 °C for the samples tested) a black scale formed between the steel and the paint, Fig. D-3. This scale layer had very poor adherence to the steel, and the paint was seen to flake off with slight pressure. Above approximately 800 °C, the kinetics of the scale formation were very fast, and after short exposures to this temperature a thick scale formed and spalled off of the steel, carrying away the paint. This left a very dark blue-black colored surface to the steel.

NIST excerpts are from pages 433 and 434, respectively, of Appendix D:
http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-3C%20Appxs.pdf

[LARED]

6. That straightens everything out

The primer paint on the WTC steel that was tested was a ceramic based primer. The red paint chips tested by Jones etal look to be regular red primer. So Harrit's claim about the WTC chips tested not being primer paint from the WTC columns due to the temp profiles from the NIST may be correct, but it also may have nothing to do with the chips tested by Jones etal.

[eomer]

7. NIST thinks that the protective paint on all the WTC steel was this same cermamic type.

So your new theory (now that the old one is disproved) is that the red chips were primer paint on some other element of the buildings, something other than the steel?

[LARED]

8. Yes, and

it's a good theory because there is no evidence of where the chips tested by Jones originated. And there is a the so far ignored problem that the testing performed by the NIST and the flammability testing by Jones etal were done under completely different condition, leaving the possibility that Jones' sample of dubious origins may in fact be the same type of material tested by the NIST, Because materials behave differently under different conditions.

Tests on paint applied to a steel beam for the purpose of finding the potential temps it was exposed to is a wholly different animal that taking a very small chip of paint, putting it in a chamber, forcing air into the chamber, and finding it's ignition point.

[eomer]

9. That's a pretty strange way of looking at it.

You said, "it's a good theory because there is no evidence of where the chips tested by Jones originated."

If there is no explanation of where the chips originated then you think that's a reason to say there's nothing suspicious? I'm not getting your logic.

Regarding different testing conditions, that is quite a stretch. That the same material would produce such a conspicuous and energetic reaction consistently between 415 °C and 435 °C in one set of tests but then not combust at all to temperatures beyond 800 °C in another set of tests, where both tests are a lab attempt at doing nothing more than heating the materials, seems pretty unlikely to me.

NIST doesn't tell us the details of their tests, but the fact that they were able to control the temperatures and maintain them over extended times implies that they put their samples into some type of chamber designed for that purpose. I'm doubtful there is any meaningful difference between the two sets of tests, or any that could explain such a dramatic difference in the results anyway.

Edit to add: NIST tells us that "above approximately 800 °C, ... a thick scale formed and spalled off of the steel, carrying away the paint." So your idea that the paint being attached to steel would explain why it didn't combust does not work. Even when the paint separated from the steel, it still did not combust at temperatures above 800 °C.

Regarding the possibility that the chips could be common primer paint rather than the more specialized ceramic coating, Harrit et al addressed that question in their article (emphasis is mine):

7. Could the Red Chip Material be Ordinary Paint?

We measured the resistivity of the red material (with very
little gray adhering to one side) using a Fluke 8842A multimeter
in order to compare with ordinary paints, using the
formula:

Specific resistivity = RA / L

where R = resistance (ohms); A = cross-sectional area (m2); L
= thickness (m).

Given the small size of the red chip, about 0.5 mm x 0.5
mm, we used two probes and obtained a rough value of approximately
10 ohm-m. This is several orders of magnitude
less than paint coatings we found tabulated which are typically
over 10¹⁰ ohm-m <31>.

Another test, described above, involved subjection of red
chips to methyl ethyl ketone solvent for tens of hours, with
agitation. The red material did swell but did not dissolve, and
a hard silicon-rich matrix remained after this procedure. On
the other hand, paint samples in the same exposure to MEK
solvent became limp and showed significant dissolution, as
expected since MEK is a paint solvent.

Further, we have shown that the red material contains
both elemental aluminum and iron oxide, the ingredients of
thermite, in interesting configuration and intimate mixing in
the surviving chips (see Results, section 1). The species are
small (e.g., the iron oxide grains are roughly 100 nm across)
in a matrix including silicon and carbon, suggesting a superthermite
composite. Red chips when ignited produce very
high temperatures even now, several years after the 9/11
tragedy, as shown by the bright flash observed and the pro-
duction of molten iron-rich spheres (see photomicrographs in
Fig. (20) above). Correspondingly, the DSC tests demonstrate
the release of high enthalpy, actually exceeding that of
pure thermite. Furthermore, the energy is released over a
short period of time, shown by the narrowness of the peak in
Fig. (29). The post-DSC-test residue contains microspheres
in which the iron exceeds the oxygen content, implying that
at least some of the iron oxide has been reduced in the reaction.
If a paint were devised that incorporated these very
energetic materials, it would be highly dangerous when dry
and most unlikely to receive regulatory approval for building
use. 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.

[Bolo Boffin]

13. Paint that had been through the fire once would have changed its reaction

It takes a minute to toast bread. If someone takes my bread out 15 seconds before it's done, I'm not surprised when the bread doesn't take 1 minute to toast properly anymore.

[eomer]

15. That's an interesting theory.

Quite certain to be wrong, but extra points for creativity.

[Bolo Boffin]

19. "Quite certain to be wrong"

Well, people burn wood and also make charcoal out of wood all day long. They must be quite certain to be wrong as well?

[eomer]

20. What exactly are you saying?

Which paint samples are you saying might have been burned prior to the test? The samples in the possession of Harrit, et al, or the samples tested by NIST?

I don't believe the Harrit red/grey chips could have already burned once. They would certainly not have the properties they do if they had already combusted once.

The paint samples that NIST tested would have been selected by them for the specific purpose of determining the effects of heat exposure applied to WTC steel that was in its original state. Are you saying they were so incompetent that they missed the fact that their tests gave completely fallacious indications because they were using steel that had previously been burned?

You must mean one or the other of these two things but I can't see any sense in either of them.

[Bolo Boffin]

21. "What exactly are you saying?" A clear indication that straw men follow.

Which paint samples are you saying might have been burned prior to the test? The samples in the possession of Harrit, et al, or the samples tested by NIST?

I don't believe the Harrit red/grey chips could have already burned once. They would certainly not have the properties they do if they had already combusted once.

The ones tested by NIST were exposed to heat but had not combusted. If they had combusted, they would have been ash.

I am saying that Herrit has his hands on paint chips that have undergone exposure to heat and thus have changed their properties. This does not mean they have combusted. That's your straw man.

The paint samples that NIST tested would have been selected by them for the specific purpose of determining the effects of heat exposure applied to WTC steel that was in its original state. Are you saying they were so incompetent that they missed the fact that their tests gave completely fallacious indications because they were using steel that had previously been burned?

And here's your other straw man (well, technically the same one, "combustion" or "been burned", just applied a different way). Neither the NIST paint chips nor the Herrit paint chips have been burned. But both have been exposed to heat that altered their physical properties. That is exactly what I am saying.

[eomer]

22. "What exactly are you saying?" A clear indication that clarification is being requested.

And I actually still need a bit more clarification. Are you arguing that the Harrit chips are in fact chips of paint that came off the WTC steel? That, in other words, the NIST samples and the Harrit samples are in fact the same materials from the same origin and that the different properties seen in them are explained by heat exposure during the 9/11 events?

If so, I still don't see how that is possible.

NIST says the paint on WTC steel had been bake-cured at the factory at around 120 °C and that it was essentially a ceramic coating. They apparently found samples to test that had not been subjected during the 9/11 event to as much as 250 °C since they did not yet show mud cracking. That combination of facts makes it seem unlikely that NIST's samples had been changed during the 9/11 event from combustible to non-combustible (to beyond 800 °C) without NIST realizing it. Again, that would require an extreme level of incompetence at NIST. I think it is a pretty sure bet (and it is NIST's reputation we are betting) that the ceramic coating on WTC steel was already (before 9/11) non-combustible beyond 800 °C.

The only other way these could be the same materials would be that heat exposure changed a coating that was originally non-combustible beyond 800 °C (as per the NIST tests) into a material that was combustible at around 425 °C (when tested by Harrit). But this one seems pretty unlikely as well. The coating had already been bake-cured at the factory. And, of course, it was going to be heated anyway during the Harrit tests. What effect could heating during the 9/11 event have had that had such a drastically different effect than both the heating at the factory and the heating during the test. This seems pretty unlikely.

This second theory also has the problem that the Harrit red/grey chip samples were found to have a composition that was extremely consistent across samples taken from four separate locations. Apparently the combustion test results were also consistent across chips from the four different sampling locations since they mentioned no variations. They also found that the composition of the red material within each chip was very consistent and that there were unusual characteristics (implicating nanotechnology) that were consistent within each chip and consistent across all the chips from all the samples from all the locations. It does not seem plausible that heat exposure during the chaotic 9/11 events could have been a required element in the production of these properties because then they would have found some chips that expressed the properties, some that didn't, and a range of expression in relation to the range of actual heat exposure.

Please feel free to perfect your theory (or theories) if I haven't stated it correctly. You know by now that I'm not interested in knocking down strawmen.

[hack89]

10. Why didn't they simply compare the chip to actual nano-thermite?

the stuff does exists in the real world, doesn't it?

[eomer]

11. Answer to your question is in the article.

Essentially they just didn't do it yet. They agree that comparing with nano-thermite and/or super thermite is an obvious next step. However, there is the complication (as the article explains) that there are many different forms.

I would add that there surely must be forms developed for military use and/or experimental use that are not publicly available. So any such tests would have to be taken as a search for one that matches. Testing against just one or two particular varieties and finding that they don't match wouldn't tell us much. In other words, a negative result wouldn't say much; only a positive result would have significance.

Here are excerpts from the article that address your question:

We would like to make detailed comparisons of the red
chips with known super-thermite composites, along with
comparisons of the products following ignition, but there are
many forms of this high-tech thermite, and this comparison
must wait for a future study.

8. What Future Studies are Contemplated?

We observe that the total energy released from some of
the red chips exceeds the theoretical limit for thermite alone
(3.9 kJ/g). One possibility is that the organic material in the
red layer is itself energetic. Determination of the chemical
compound(s) involved in the organic component of the red
material would promote understanding. Further studies of the
red material (separated from the gray material) compared to
known super-thermite variants using DSC, TGA, FTIR (etc.)
analyses would certainly be in order. In particular, NMR and
GC-mass spectroscopy and related studies are urged to identify
the organic material.

We have observed that some chips have additional elements
such as potassium, lead, barium and copper. Are these
significant, and why do such elements appear in some red
chips and not others? An example is shown in Fig. (31)
which shows significant Pb along with C, O, Fe, and Al and
displays multiple red and gray layers.

In addition, the gray-layer material demands further
study. What is its purpose? Sometimes the gray material appears
in multiple layers, as seen in Fig. (32).

[Bolo Boffin]

12. There are also many different forms of paint

besides the paint used on the BYU stadium.

[hack89]

16. So it is way too early to make definitive conclusions yet?

did they actual document that "many forms of this high-tech thermite" actually exist in the real world or are we to simply take them at their word?

So negative result proves nothing? What perfect world Truthers live in.

[eomer]

18. I'd say they are roughly at the strong indications stage.

You don't have to take them at their word that there are high-tech thermites that exist. You can prove it to yourself by looking into it if you want to.

A negative result proves what it proves, nothing more nothing less. Which isn't much. If you test a particular candidate compound and determine that the red chips don't match it then it only says that the red chips don't match that one candidate. It doesn't tell you whether there is some other candidate compound, not yet tested, that will match. That's the world I live in. Which one do you live in?