It would be deception if I were trying to misrepresent something moron.
But i'm not, I made it explicitly clear that I had not commented on the relative abundances represented represented by the XEDS, I simply pointed out that they are there.
WHich they are, and no amount of protestation or whinging on your part is ever going to change that. Harrit even aknowledges there presence, but without justification later dismisses them as surface contamination.
The only liar here is actually you, your post, in its totallity represents a strawman argument, it attacks the one point that I explicitly stated I wasn't addressing at that time.
Your post demonstrates, yet again, that you have no clue about how to read XEDS spectra, and even less understanding of chemistry.
Oh, and bonus points for your pathetic attempt at dishonesty by the way, cutting out the
relevant XEDS spectrum.
Yet more proof that you know nothing of XEDS spectra. That peak is present in all raw XEDS data.
It came from this paper:
Xi Jin Xu A facile approach to the formation of the alumina nanostructures from
anodic alumina membranes
This is a 15kev spectrum, however it serves to demonstrate how deceptive relative peak heights can be (this is from another paper).
Note that on a mass basis, Zinc and Oxygen are present in approximately equal amounts, however, compare the relative peak heights, and learn something.
BSE images from Harrit's paper show NO dominant presence of Zinc at all (or even a notable presence). Aluminium and silica along with carbon and iron oxide are far far more dominant in the red-chips. Magnesium would also show up here as a constitutent dominant over aluminium and silica, but it is not there. This is NOT paint from the WTC! That is a total impossibility from these analyses.
To answer your point about X-EDS however: -
The SEM X-EDS profile you have shown from the paper you cited; is from a cross-sectional area of the nano alumina tubes.
The following images are from an SEM X-EDS of the cross-sectional area of the red-gray chips: -
And another cross-sectional X-EDS of red-chip A: -
http://zelikow.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/figure-5b.png?w=600&h=462&h=462
Notice strong signals for aluminium, silica, oxygen and iron at equal returns (the main constituents of the red-chips). Yet very weak returns for Zinc and Magnesium. An important point, you need to realise.
Now you can tell that the cross-sectional SEM X-EDS are not suitable for a quantitative comparative analysis of the proportion of aluminium relative to oxygen in terms of relative spatial presence. The fourth sample in Fig. 7 shows aluminium and silicates reflecting x-ray spikes at the same levels, or slightly exceeding oxygen in terms of returns. The second sample shows a lower peak for oxygen and close to the aluminium too. You need to realise that Harrit's paper addresses this, and hence the focus of the electron beam on specific areas that show certain high concentrations. This was done and I quote: -
"The next XEDS spectrum (Fig. 17) was acquired from a
region that showed a high concentration of aluminum. Using
a conventional quantification routine, it was found that the
aluminum significantly exceeded the oxygen present (approximately
a 3:1 ratio)."
So, they have confirmed the clear presence of elemental aluminium, and the X-EDS for these respective areas are in my previous posts.
They have also clearly detected iron-oxide next to the elemental aluminium: -
"Oxygen is very consistently found in high concentration
with the iron in the red material even after soaking in MEK
solvent (Fig. 15), and in Fig. (18) an abundance of oxygen is
found relative to iron. Based on quantification of the XEDS
spectra, and after accounting for oxygen fractions to trace elements,
it is found that the Fe
ratio for the spectrum in Fig.
(18) is approximately 2:3. This indicates that the iron is oxidized
and apparently in oxidation state III, indicating that Fe2O3, or
perhaps an iron (III) oxo-bridged polymer, is present.
To check the quantification method, tests were performed
with the known chemical, iron (III) oxide, and the elementalquantification
was found to yield consistent and repeatable
results for iron and oxygen. In particular we made eight 50-
second measurements on Fe2O3 samples and found consistency
for iron (± 6.2%, 1 sigma) and for oxygen (± 3.4%, 1
sigma) with the O/Fe ratio consistently near 1.5 as expected"