The following pictures are of a one dry ton per day demonstration plant built by ABRI approximately one year ago.

Cardinal Saw is now the manufacturing contractor for ABRI Biochar plants.  The dryer unit in the photos below was made by ABRI.  The remaining components were made by Cardinal.  The impoved quality of the Cardinal made components makes Biochar Products much more confident in the quality of the plant that Biochr Products plans to purchase.

Drying Unit to dry biomass to 10% moisture

Char Unit where dried biomass is heated to make char

These pictures are of an unassembled unit. This was used so we could get into all the parts and see them better than in a working unit.

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Componant Pictures of the Drying Unit

This is the electronic control unit that manages the power for all the motors in the drying unit.	This is the unit which uses syngas to heat air to be run through the drying unit
The chips or feedstock are put into this hopper View of the two grinding tubes.	The ground chips are bounced up into this tube till they are dry enough to be blown up over the top

The ABRI feedstock drying unit works by having the chips or feedstock put into the hopper and fed into the unit in appropriate amounts.

The electronic control unit manages the power for all the motors in the drying unit. There are several controllers that moderate the rates as the feed stock passes through the dryer while getting the feed stocks dried down to the 10% moisture content.

The grinder  grinds the chips into the appropriate size that will dry and work best in the fast pyrolysis chamber.

The syngas is used to heat up the air to be run through the drying unit. The syngas is produced in the char unit and fed back into the drying unit.

The heating unit blows the heated air up into the tall stainless tube. This tube is where the ground chips are  bounced up by the heated air till they are dry enough to be blown up over the top and into a small hopper where they are ready to be delivered into the char making unit.

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Componant Pictures of the Char Unit

The char unit is encased in a stainless steel box that has heavy insulation in it to keep the heat of the fast pyrolysis unit stable	Two augers the lower auger bring in the dried chips and theupper auger delivers the completed and cooled char
Looking down into the char unit   The inside of the smoke/biooil cooling unit	This unit captures the smoke that comes off the char process.
Hydraulic-unit that runs all mechanical items	Computer control unit for the char unit

The ABRI char unit is encased in a stainless steel box that has heavy insulation in it to keep the heat of the fast pyrolysis unit stable, there are a number of inputs and outputs that support the process.

The satinless steel box is built with small latches that allow the sides to be removed for repair and maintenance as needed in a fast and efficient way.

The two augers that bring in the dried chips into the char unit are on the front of the unit. One will be linked with the drying unit. The second will be where the compledted char is delivered  as cooled as it exits the unit.

Looking down into the char unit. The actual pyrolysis unit is to the right of the picture. The chips go into the lower pipe and into the unit and then once heated to the appropriate temperature around 500 degrees C the char goes out the larger pipe (auger) and is cooled outside the unit.

The smoke capture unit captures the smoke that comes off the char process. That smoke is then forced down pipes into the cooling unit.

Inside of the cooling unit the smoke is percipitated into bio-oil. The chamber is filled with water condensed from the drying unit. This smoke is run through the copper pipes in the unit.  The smoke that doesn't get condensed in the bio-oil is the syngas and goes from here back into the drying and char units as fuel that heat these two units.

The computer control unit runs the entier process of the char unit. It controls the heat and throughput rates so the proper char is produced as desired and the feedstocks are efficiently handled.

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Pictures added 12/6/2009

Picture of plant from right side	Picture of plant from the left side.

The first picture is of the plant on our return trip from Canada at a fuel station.

The second picture is of the plant from the left side of the trailer on the way back from Canada in Iowa at the site of the 50 Ton plant now being tested and run. I will have some more pictures and description of that plant on future posts.

On the front and to the left of this picture what is known as the control unit.  It contains controls that start and set the speed of all of the augers that move the biomass through the plant. It also contains pumps, cooling systems and other specific units. It also includes a computer that display's the temperatures of all the temperature sensors (thermocouples) to monitor the operation of the plant.

In the center of this picture is the actual biochar reactor this unit is where the biochar and biooil are made.

On the back or right side of this picture is the drying unit that dries the biomass down to 10% or less moisture.