Is the scientific manuscript "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11WTC" valid

As agreed upon my opponent and I will debate the validity of a manuscript titled "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe" by Harrit et al. published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal in 2012. (1,2)Before the debate starts my opponent says he only wants to debate the validity of the science, and I have agreed that we can do this. However, the fact that this article was published in the first place in this journal is a point that needs to be given some background too. I do not want this information to sway any voters but it is important to realize this article has a history. Firstly, the publication led to the resignation of the editor in chief Prof. Marie-Paule Pilenias. This was die to the manuscript been published without her permission, as editor of the journal she had final say and that something got published without her permission means it should never have been published.(3,4) Additionally, this journal has no impact factor, which is corroborated by Bentham the journal publishers.(5) This is relevant, as this journal then is not an accredited source of information in the scientific community.Now, onto the debate.In this debate, I will be addressing specific factors of relevance in the various rounds and then give my opponent a chance to reply. In the final round I will summarize my arguments and give some closing thoughts regarding the manuscript.The first point of contention regarding this manuscript is how do we even know if these samples came from the World Trade Center (WTC). The four samples used in this study were collected by non scientists. This means that the samples could have been contaminated as they were not handled properly in an evidence chain by trained scientists. Regardless of this however, a bigger contention regarding these samples is that no effort was made by the authors to verify using a chemical signature that the samples actually came form the WTC buildings. Every material has a specific chemical signal which is determined by the composition of impurities in the material. This means the authors could have validated using chemical signatures from building material at the WTC site whether this building material did come from the WTC. This was not done and as such we have to doubt whether this material was even part of the WTC.This chemical signature could have been very easily verified as the authors even note that "Fifteen small chips having a total mass of 1.74 mg were extracted from a 1.6 g sample of dust from which readily identifiable glass and concrete fragments had been removed by hand." So the question is why was the concrete on which this thermite was found not tested to verify its origin?This argument clearly shows that we have to doubt the chain of custody and possible contamination. Additionally, this material may not even come from the WTC as it was not verified using chemical signatures. In the next rounds I will open further arguments casting doubt on the validity of the manuscript.I hand the debate over to my opponent for his first rebuttals.(1) http://www.benthamscience.com...(2) http://www.benthamscience.com...(3) http://en.wikipedia.org...(4) http://videnskab.dk...(5) http://www.benthamscience.com...