Off-line and on-line optical monitoring of microalgal growth

Hugo-Enrique Lazcano-Hernández; Gabriela Aguilar; Gabriela Antonia Dzul-Cetz; Rodrigo Patiño; Javier Arellano-Verdejo

doi:10.7717/peerj.7956

Off-line and on-line optical monitoring of microalgal growth

PeerJ. 2019 Nov 1:7:e7956. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7956. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Hugo-Enrique Lazcano-Hernández¹, Gabriela Aguilar², Gabriela Antonia Dzul-Cetz², Rodrigo Patiño², Javier Arellano-Verdejo³

Affiliations

¹ Cátedras CONACYT-El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Chetumal, Quintana Roo, México.
² Departamento de Física Aplicada, Cinvestav Unidad Mérida, Mérida, Yucatán, México.
³ Estación para la Recepción de Información Satelital ERIS-Chetumal, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Chetumal, Quintana Roo, México.

Abstract

The growth of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii microalgae cultures was successfully monitored, using classic off-line optical techniques (optical density and fluorescence) and on-line analysis of digital images. In this study, we found that the chlorophyll fluorescence ratio F ₆₈₅/F ₇₄₀ has a linear correlation with the logarithmic concentration of microalgae. By using digital images, the biomass concentration correlated with the luminosity of the images through an exponential equation and the length of penetration of a super luminescent blue beam (λ = 440 nm) through an inversely proportional function. The outcomes of this study are useful to monitor both research and industrial microalgae cultures.

Keywords: C. reinhardtii cultures growth; Chl a fluorescence images; Chlamydomonas reinhardtii; Chlorophyll fluorescence; Chlorophyll optical density; Fluorescence ratio; Proximal remote sensing.

Grants and funding

Hugo-Enrique Lazcano-Hernández received a postdoctoral fellowship from CONACYT and the support through the “Cátedras-CONACYT” program (project 526). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.