We were in Newberg working with PC Engineering last week. 

We got the airlock installed at the base of the internal cyclone. It is basically a tube with a six fingered star shaped part inside rotating slowly run by a small electric motor. 

This airlock prevents gas from being drawn up from the bottom of the cyclone while letting char that is knocked out of the gas stream by the cyclone to fall into the shot auger where it should be and the remaining clean gas to be passed on to the oil condensation section of the reactor.

We are very hopeful that this will prove to solve the major problem we have with the reactor, that is plugging of the biooil cooling system.  Also this will allow us to make better biooil as well.

Second we met with a hydraulics expert and he has helped us plan to make some modifications. There are several issues with the way the hydraulics are set up that can be improved over the way ABRI designed them. The most important is that fan speed that draws the hot gasses our of the reactor and through the biooil cooling system is not adequate.  This causes gasses to escape where they are supposed to.  The fan is driven by a high speed hydraulic motor which is not currently getting enough flow. 

We will be making these modifications next week. 

Once these modifications are complete we will move the plant up to the Umpqua National Forest site and start testing and running for the next stage of our work with the Forest Service Rocky Mt. Research Station.