Again, it's POSSIBLE (in my most benign interpretation) that they considered the FTIR and TEM data useless. For example, if it showed no aluminum of any kind at all. In other words, not contradicting their thermite claims, just showing a blank screen.
I am being very benign when I offer this possibility.
The FTIR data should have identified the carbon based matrix (within which the particles were embedded).
There are two layers in the chips a-d and the MEK chip. These are labelled as red and gray. (I know everyone knows that but bear with me).
It's very apparent that the gray layer in all of these samples is the same material, even in a chip that has multiple layers. However, they fail to positively identify this material even though the clues are right there. The gray layer is obviously metallic as can be seen from the optical and SEM microscopy. Considering the EDX data for that layer shows a spectrum containing iron and carbon along with oxygen and distinct peaks around the KeV for Mn then the analysis strongly points towards this gray layer being steel.
This is very basic observation. Considering they were looking for a material that would have been used to melt structural steel then the fact they had no idea what this gray layer material was (other than an oxidised iron) or it's purpose, shows they really didn't understand what they were looking at or at best blind to it. This may have been hampered by observing chips with multiple layers, but as you can see from Fig 32 and the accompanying text this same layer appears in that multi-layered chip.
I don't really know what to say, because it is such a fundamental mistake.
When I did the analysis on the gray layer I showed that the material found in Harrit et al matched the material found in FEMA report "Metallographic Examination of Heavily Eroded Structural Steel from World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2 and 7".
It should have been self evident that this layer was an oxidised steel. That fact would still have been consistent with the thermite hypothesis, i.e, red layer equals thermite, gray layer is structural steel. Yet we have this from Harrit et al:
In addition, the gray-layer material demands further
study. What is its purpose?
To me that suggests that they considered this metallic gray layer to be a component of the thermite. Considering that iron oxide is a component of thermite and the EDX spectrum of this layer, on first viewing, shows oxidised iron, then I can see that their own prejudice pointed them in a certain direction. It would explain why chips with both red and gray layers were subjected to DSC rather than the more rational stance of separating the two bearing in mind the SEM data showed iron oxide pigment was present in the red layer. Truthers often point to the 100nm iron oxide pigment as if it's some form of highly engineered material that can only be fabricated in a dedicated lab, but they ignore the gray layer.
Not correctly identifying the gray layer is incompetent because it's such an easy thing to do. Millette correctly identifies the material. I'm therefore of the opinion that the analysis of the data for the gray layer was one of incompetence.
The red layer is obviously where the meat of the discussion lies. This layer consists of 3 constituents that are visible by SEM and EDX analysis: The carbon based matrix, the rhomboid iron oxide particles and the hexagonal flat platelets.
The organic matrix is not identified in Harrit et al. The SEM images suggest a cross-linked polymer of some sort, but no attempt to identify this material is evident in the paper. However, Millette's work using FTIR clearly shows that this material is an epoxy of some form. FTIR is not the tool to use in order to find out if the sample contains pure Al. It will tell you what the organic binder material is and it will identify the presence of kaolin. We have no idea which sample(s) was subjected to FTIR. We have no idea whether it was a chip akin to chips a-d) or the MEK chip or something else, we just know it was done.
Considering such a test will identify the organic matrix then it's an important test to use and should have been a part of the paper seeing as it's a non-destructive test (NDT). This experiment may have been considered unimportant because it didn't identify Al, but that is just a misappropriation.
We then move onto the hexagonal platelets that are embedded in the unidentified organic matrix. The very fact that these particles are shown to be the shape they are shows that these particles are crystalline in nature. There is simply no getting away from the fact. The EDX spectrum of these platelets corresponds with kaolin very nicely in both Harrit at all and Millette's progress report. The fact that such an easily identifiable material was missed/ignored by the paper's authors speaks volumes.
We have little idea what the TEM data shows in total, but snippets have come out. Those snippets show that it's far more probable that kaolin was present in the sample. We also know from those snippets that Sr and Cr were identified. That should have set alarm bells ringing. We have a higher detailed EDX spectrum of the red layer that shows both strontium and chromium were present in a sample. Here is the spectrum:
You can clearly see that this chip is labelled as coming from the MacKinlay sample of dust. That sample is identified as sample 1 In Harrit et al. The chip that corresponds to the MacKinlay dust sample in Fig 7 in Harrit et al is labelled as a).
If you look at the above EDX spectrum then you can clearly see it is labelled as "Label A: Chip Cross Section".
That strongly suggests that this spectrum is simply a far more detailed spectrum of chip a) in Fig 7.
We therefore know that the TEM data correlated with the EDX data in some respect. We don't know if chip a) was the same chip that was subjected to both EDX and TEM or whether the other chips b,c,d were, however, from your video we know that Farrer was accused of having the wrong chip, even though this chip was subjected to a number of tests:
This was in spite of the fact that the TEM specimen was prepared from the same chip that was used in many of the other tests.
So we know that there was some debate as to what was included in the paper and the fact that other people involved were already of a certain mindset.
We know from this statement that TEM analysis was conducted before the paper was published and conducted on a chip (or chips) that was subjected to other tests.
There is some ambiguity here because the chips a-d), which were analysed in the SEM, were broken in half in order to analyse the cross-section, which would provide a fresh surface free from contamination. So the other half of a chip could very well be prepared for TEM analysis whist the other half ended up being used for DSC or ignition tests.
I'd make a bet that the chip that Farrer analysed using TEM was on of the halves of one of the four chips labelled a-d) in Harrit et al.
The TEM analysis on any of those 4 chips would not have shown pure Al because it was not present. The compound containing Al was kaolin as evidenced by the atomic ratio between Al and Si that has been stated by Farrer.
The screen wasn't blank at all, it just showed something that didn't confirm the hypothesis. Is that fraud? Well probably not in general terms, but data that was not compatible with pure Al or the thermite hypothesis was certainly ignored.
This paper was a collective effort. You can easily see that there are a different authors. For example, the section under Materials Characterisation is certainly written by a person or persons who are familiar with writing such description. It's akin to something I would have written and still do.
However, the fact of the matter is, the rest of the paper is a mish-mash that draws wrongful conclusions. It's just a crappy paper that has no relevance outside of the narrow spectrum that is truther fantasy.
