The explosive nature of nanothermite

[Lauren Johnson]

By Kevin Ryan
From: http://digwithin.net/2011/06/19/the-expl...othermite/
In the last few years, a series of peer-reviewed scientific articles has been published that establish the presence of thermitic materials at the World Trade Center (WTC). [A-D]

Although we know that nanothermite has been found in the WTC dust, we do not know what purpose it served in the deceptive demolition of the WTC buildings. It could be that the nanothermite was used simply to drive fires in the impact zones and elevator areas fires which would otherwise have gone out too early or not been present at all and thereby create the deception that jet fuel-induced fires could wreak the havoc seen. Nanothermite might also have been used to produce the explosions necessary to destroy the structural integrity of the buildings.
Nanothermite, also called superthermite, is the common name for a subset of metastable intermolecular composites (MICs) characterized by a highly exothermic reaction after ignition. Nanothermites contain an oxidizer and a reducing agent that are intimately mixed on the nanometer scale. Such nano-energetics are produced for various applications including propellants, explosives, and pyrotechnics.
There are various ways to make nanothermites. They can be made as solid mixtures of aluminum and metal oxides which are typically produced using techniques like dynamic vapor phase condensation and arrested reactive milling. These mixtures are much like typical thermite mixtures, but with the components introduced on a much smaller scale. Alternatively, nanothermites can be made in a liquid solution that later gels, capturing the reactive components in an intimately mixed composite which is dried before it can be ignited. These are called sol-gel nanothermites, also known more generally as energetic nanocomposites.
Sol-gel nanothermites often contain other components such as fluorinated silanes, and therefore carbon and silicon. The nanothermite found in World Trade Center (WTC) dust samples contains carbon and silicon as well. Ignition of such a nanothermite results in the production of gas which rapidly expands and does pressure-volume work. One of the primary products of the thermite reaction, aluminum oxide, is also a gas at the temperatures produced by the thermite reaction.
Below are ten references to the fact that nanothermites can be made to be explosive.
1. This 2004 paper from Lawrence Livermore Labs is quite clear about nanothermites being
"explosive composites based on thermite reactions."
It begins: "We have developed a new method of making nanostructured energetic materials, specifically explosives…using sol-gel chemistry."
https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/307362.pdf
2. This online article entitled "NanoScale Chemistry Yields Better Explosives" discusses the procedure by which sol-gel nanothermites are made and gives a nice TEM image of a nanothermite. https://www.llnl.gov/str/RSimpson.html
3. This US Department of Defense journal from Spring, 2002 describes how:
"All of the military services and some DOE and academic laboratories have active R&D programs aimed at exploiting the unique properties of nanomaterials that have potential to be used in energetic formulations for advanced explosives."
It clarifies that
[Nanothermite properties] "include energy output that is 2x that of high explosives" and "As sol-gel materials and methodology advances, there are a number of possible application areas that are envisioned [including] high-power, high-energy composite explosives.
http://ammtiac.alionscience.com/pdf/AMPQ6_1ART06.pdf
4. A high explosive creates a shockwave that always travels at high, supersonic velocity from the point of origin. This paper describes how
"the reaction of the low density nanothermite composite leads to a fast propagating combustion, generating shock waves with Mach numbers up to 3."
http://apl.aip.org/applab/v91/i24/p24310...ized=no%20
5. In this paper, former NIST employee Michael Zachariah discusses
"developing an oxidizer matrix for reaction with nano-aluminum [i.e. nanothermite] for energy intensive applications involving explosives and propellants…".
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cm034740t
6. This article helps us understand how the military has been leveraging the potential explosive power of nanoenergetic compounds, specifically nanothermites. It describes a
"new class of weaponry that uses energy-packed nanometals to create powerful, compact bombs." Purdue professor Steven Son, who has become a leading expert on nanothermites, goes on to say that "Superthermites can increase the (chemical) reaction time by a thousand times…resulting in a very rapid reactive wave…used in many applications, including…explosive devices." The article says that such nanoenergetics enable "building more lethal weapons such as cave-buster bombs that have several times the detonation force of conventional bombs."
http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/14105/?a=f
7. Unlike some energetic materials, nanothermites are "tunable", meaning the "ignition sensitivity thresholds, reaction rate, and pressure generation can be tailored to have a wide range of values." Explosives generate pressure, as do nanothermites tuned to do just that.
http://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2008/techp...128319.HTM
8. This conference paper states that
"Nanoenergetic thermite materials release energy much faster than conventional energetic materials and have various potential military applications such as… explosives. They are likely to become the next-generation explosive materials."
http://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2008/techp...131370.HTM
9. This paper from the US Army describes how:
"These tunable nanoenergetic materials will be useful for various applications such as high-temperature non-detonable gas generators, adaptable flares, green primers for propellants and explosives, high power/energy explosives.
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA481290&Location=U2&doc=GetTRD...
10. Even Wikipedia knows that nanothermite is used for explosive applications.
Nanothermites "are generally developed for military use, propellants, explosives, and pyrotechnics. Because of their highly increased reaction rate, nanosized thermitic materials are being researched by the U.S. military with the aim of developing new types of bombs that are several times more powerful than conventional explosives."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-thermite
Of course, many more such references exist in the literature and it doesn't take much effort to discover them. Anyone who is interested in truth and justice can find these and more.
Future analytical work on WTC dust and other samples will help us understand what exact kind(s) of nanothermite was used at the WTC and, perhaps, for what purposes it was used. Until then, the simple fact that nanothermite has been found throughout the WTC dust is itself explosive. And it is an incendiary fact that official investigators and mainstream media have ignored that explosive fact for more than two years.
[A] Steven E. Jones, et al, Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction, The Open Civil Engineering Journal Volume 2, 2008
[B] Steven E. Jones, et al, Extremely high temperatures during the World Trade Center destruction, Journal of 9/11 Studies, Volume 19, January 2008,
[C] Kevin R. Ryan, et al, Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials, The Environmentalist, Volume 29, Number 1 / March, 2009,
[D] Niels H. Harrit, et al, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Volume 2, 2009

[Peter Lemkin]

Thanks for posting that Lauren. I looked at a few of the referred to articles and it is clear - as it has long been - that nanothermite can be used as both 'cutter-charges' to virtually melt through steel beams, as well as explosives to demolish a building. Perfect for just what was seen on 9-11 if it was utilized for both in a highly choreographed computer-controlled manner. The elephant in the room that no one in the MSM or Government wants to discuss is why there were many tens of tons of nanothermite in the WTC towers!!!! Surely, no one would have keep this in the closet for cleaning the toilets if they got blocked...so just what was it doing there?! Further, most of it was reacted [i.e. used to produce high heat or explosive force]....and, in fact, is the ONLY explanation so far offered for the energy output of the explosive collapses, which were greater than would be/was available from gravitational potential energy! Just as with Dallas and so many other fake scenarios, most Americans are refusing to deal with what actually happened that day - preferring to leave it to the 'authorities' to tell their lies and the false scenario they have been vomiting for over a decade now. It is also interesting that NIST has been involved in the use and testing of nanothermite for explosives and cutting charges - and they have turned [or been told to turn] a blind eye to this as a possible mechanism in the WTCs three towers that collapsed in the most unnatural way!

...JO will be here shortly to debunk these posts and that article....I predict. [but try as he and others might, they can not - nanothermite is by FAR the best and most logical explanation of HOW the WTC towers were brought down...now we need to find the WHO!]....and stop them...as it is only a matter of time before they pull off something similar or worse!

[Jeffrey Orling]

Aside from the questioned findings of the Harrit paper of thje existence of NT by the Millette paper and the nano thermite challenge... even if nano thermite could be tailored to be cutter charges or "explode" the steel frame apart.. where is the evidece of the steel being blown apart or cut with *cutter charges*? I know... they spirited all that evidence away and left only the stuff which looks like the frame fell apart naturally to conceal their crime... and operative nasty Guiliani was in charge of evidence destruction.

The dog ate the homework is not going to cut it... no pun intended. Show examples of steel cut with NT... or evidence of steel exploded by devices.. There IS buckled steel from the collapse zone and this would indicate that that steel... at least... was too weak to support the axial loads upon it and buckled. And of course since we know the axial loads did not increase it meant one of three or a combination of the three things...

1. the other load paths have been destroyed or compromised... could be from plane destruction of even explosives... or heat weakening (I suppose)

2. the strength of the found buckled columns had been driven down by heat... as heated steel has less strength then cold steel

3. the factor of safety was not high enough to for the remaining steel columns... those not severered by planes of explosions (no evidence of) such that heat weakening was able to drive the FOS below 1 and the columns failed. Had the designed in FOS been much higher the columns would endure more heating and so forth before failing. The FOS was a bit higher than a typical steel frame but the factors eroding it were able to fail the frame.

Others have pointed out how unusual the collapse was because no steel frame collapsed from office fires alone. And neither did the twin towers. The twins were ALSO subject to loss of a large number of columns from the plane strikes and this was not the case in any other office building/high rise on fire. And the twins were of a unique hull in core long span column free office space and extremely light weight construction and no other tower which was on fire had such a design. And of course both twins also had thousands of gallons of jet A fuel which burned and spread the fires and both had huge holes from the plane strikes which ventilated the fires... unlike other high rise fires.

The towers fell from a cascading series of progressive multiple factors which failed the core.. leading to the floor collapses / destruction leading to the facade peeling (not being exploded off) leading to the core being stripped of most of the bracing and it collapsing from its own weight as a result of Euler forces.

But of course explosions can destroy things too.

Why did anyone want to destroy the WTC?

[Peter Lemkin]

JO jumped in here [as on most all 911 threads questioning or presenting evidence against the official version [which he represents here on this Forum....for whom or why one might ask]], as usual. Despite his dissembling, the work on nanothermite/ate in the dust of the WTC buidlings [all three is solid science and remains unchallenged by the overwhelming majority of unimbedded scientists.

[Jeffrey Orling]

JO jumped in here [as on most all 911 threads questioning or presenting evidence against the official version [which he represents here on this Forum....for whom or why one might ask]], as usual. Despite his dissembling, the work on nanothermite/ate in the dust of the WTC buidlings [all three is solid science and remains unchallenged by the overwhelming majority of unimbedded scientists.

Lemkin I represent my own position not the official version nor the 9-11 truth version. Enough with your endless repetition that I am a shill for the NIST.

Just because I disagree with your beliefs does not mean I support the position you oppose. You apparently are too dense to understand that it is not one or the other. Or more likely that both are wrong.

I was invited to DP to add some expertise about 9/11. My first encounter was the Judy Wood thread where all manner of misunderstanding was represented and you popped up along with Fetzer with a never ending barrage of ad hom attacks which you continue to this day.

You haven't a clue about the structure or understand boo about how a steel frame structure is designed or held together, how the loads are resisted, how columns and beams work or even how the towers actually came down. You are so entrenched in your beliefs that you are incapable of rational thought or considering anything else but your beliefs (religion?). You are nothing but a parrot citing what you think is valid research... research you can't even understand. And all that's fine, but you are an insulting and dismissive person who makes remarks bordering on slander. That is

I represent what I find disputes both the official and the various 9-11 truth versions... Judy Wood, Dimitri Khazelov, Steven Jones, and Niels Harrit who have all done their share of producing what amounts to nothing more than junk science about the events of 9-11. But the biggest poser is Jim Fetzer who likes to pass himself of as some sort of expert about everything. He's as slick as a used car salesman, but thankfully many see through him.

[Jeffrey Orling]

Accident Investigations- Challenger Disaster:

"Feynman, alone, was the only one on the committee that looked deeper into the disaster, and, not surprisingly, he was the only one who acually discovered possible mechanical causes for the Challenger disintegration. His findings were quite different than the other investigators who seemed to be operating according to "business as usual". The committee attempted to surpress his findings within the final report, yet he resisted this attempt and they were included in the appendix. In order to make his own findings public he bypassed convention and went straight to the public during a press conference which proved to be quite embarrassing to NASA management, giving the now famous presentation seen in the video."

"....
Secondly, each, in their own way, viewed belief in authority and an authoritarian world view as very dangerous and almost hypnotic.

Feynman: "Learn from science that you must doubt the experts.....Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."[SUP]18[/SUP]

Doubting experts and core underlying assumptions is not optional according to Feynman. It is a mandatory condition for the practice of science beyond "business as usual", or the generation and application of stock puzzle solutions.


Einstein: "To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."[SUP]19[/SUP]
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth".[SUP]20[/SUP]

In the case of David Bohm, a man widely considered as one of the best quantum mechanicians ever, he considered giving up physics altogether as a waste of his time.


Max Planck, considered the founder of quantum mechanics, offered this sobering account of the true nature of a scientific revolution as he personally experienced it (which is quoted in Kuhn's book):

"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."[SUP]21[/SUP]

These people seem very aware of the difference between individual scientific creativity and institutionalized science."

"...

1) The state of the NIST professionalism and transparency (government)

2) The state of professional and academic skepticism, The publication and peer review process (professional and academic)

3) The state of journalism - The 4th branch of government

4) The state of citizen researchers

5) The active awareness of individual citizens


with respect to the World Trade Center collapses there was no protection against false technical claims on any of these levels.

.....

Individual citizens

In the case of 9/11 there are supposedly various groups of private citizens that claim to do their own research. They exist within a general polarity some of us call "truthers" and "debunkers". One may assume that some of these groups would have been interested in the most detailed mappings of the visible collapse processes available to the public. But once again, this is found not to be the case. In the cases of the scholars organizations or AE911T, for example, detailed mappings are perceived as a threat.

One would think that if the information in these mappings was damaging to many common "truther" arguments 9which they are), then debunkers would utilize the mappings. But this does not happen either since the mappings do not support debunker beliefs and they are quite embarrassing to the NIST.

Inability to distinguish technical fact from fiction

The resulting environment can be so anti-intellectual and laden with taboo that if accurate, verifiable mappings surfaced, people wouldn't be able to distinguish between the illusions and the reality even if their very lives depended upon it.

The environment is filled with so much useless and distracting crap that people on the whole cannot distinguish between real or unreal information to "save their souls". People in general loose the means by which fantasy could be distinguished from the reality in this condition. Hence they have no means by which to defend themselves from being manipulated by false technical claims.

The only defense remaining

The only defense left is one's own ability to fact-check claims through one's own direct efforts. There is no other way. But how many people will show the initiative or have the talents or experience to check ones facts directly?

Consider the large, large majority of people who have neither the patience, ability or motivation to check facts using one's own direct effort. They will be forced to choose a belief. What choice do they have? Admitting that this is the case can be quite a humbling experience which requires honesty and self awareness."

[Jeffrey Orling]

To give readers a glimpse of what a mess the 9-11 truth movement is in. read this missive from one of the presenters who appeared at the Fetzer organized event:


"Comment:
As an expert witness-presenter at the Vancouver Hearings and direct eye- and earwitness to Alfred Webre's dinner table conversation with me and another witness the last night of the Hearings, I know with 100 percent certainty that he is outright lying when he claims he didn't make an agreement with Hearings organizer Jim Fetzer not to include Basiago's absurd claims in the Hearings process. He did, and the proof is that over dinner the last night of the Hearings he outlined Basiago's claims to me at length, to which I took notes as he spoke; expressed frustration that he had made the promise not to include Basiago's information in what he was to write up for the Hearings; and asked explicitly how I thought he might get around his promise so he could include it anyway. Shocked that he would even consider including claims -- sworn to or otherwise -- of a delusional Cosmic 'Forrest Gump' who thinks he personally witnessed Jesus' cruxifiction and Lincoln's Gettysburg address and battled dinosaurs on Mars with President Obama, I told him in no uncertain terms, as did the other party at the dinner, that he DID have to keep his promise to Jim Fetzer to protect the integrity of both the Hearings and the 9/11 Truth Movement. Webre then not only went ahead and solicited an affidavit from Basiago, who was not a presenter at or even present at the Hearings, which he included in the Hearings docket, but sent ONLY the Basiago nonsense and NONE of the hard evidence presentations or affidavits of ANY of the 19 expert witnesses who actually testified at the Hearings -- to a high-ranking European judge. This action caused immediate outrage by almost every Hearings speaker, and we immediately joined ranks to formally separate from Webre and any 9/11- related process he continues with. He is not a 'judge' of anything, except in his own mind. His claim in his posted comment to this article that Jim Fetzer, Kevin Barrett and I "distort what really happened in their passion
to limit the 9/11 Accused to the 'usual suspects'" is both provably false and absurd. It is Webre who completely distorts what happened, in fact outright lies about it, and knows that he is. He made a promise to Jim Fetzer and willfully, 'in-your-face' broke it. It is also impossible that his claim that I have "a passion for limiting the 9/11 Accused to the 'usual suspects'" could be true when, precisely because I knew he was planning to discredit the Hearings process with Basiago's Cosmic Forrest Gump claims, I had withheld my submission listing who should be accused from him. He doesn't have it, so he has zero idea what is in it. Webre's claims in other forums that I 'lobbied' him at the dinner the last night of the Hearings is also a crock. He asked to have dinner with me; it was his agenda; and it was he who lobbied me to try to help him come up with ideas as to how he could get around his pledge to Jim Fetzer. He just asked the wrong person. I will be preparing a sworn jurat affidavit including all of these points for the record.
Barbara Honegger"


This is precisely the level of childishness and ego that is destroying any opportunity to learn the truth... the so called leaders of the 9-11 truth movement are going to rue the day.