Quantifying Microalgae Growth by the Optical Detection of Glucose in the NIR Waveband

Abstract

Microalgae have become a popular area of research over the past few decades due to their enormous benefits to various sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, biofuels, and food and feed. Nevertheless, the benefits of microalgae cannot be fully exploited without the optimization of their upstream production. The growth of microalgae is commonly measured based on the optical density of the sample. However, the presence of debris in the culture and the optical absorption of the intercellular components affect the accuracy of this measurement. As a solution, this paper introduces the direct optical detection of glucose molecules at 940–960 nm to accurately measure the growth of microalgae. In addition, this paper also discusses the effects of the presence of glucose on the absorption of free water molecules in the culture. The potential of the optical detection of glucose as a complement to the commonly used optical density measurement at 680 nm is discussed in this paper. Lastly, a few recommendations for future works are presented to further verify the credibility of glucose detection for the accurate determination of microalgae’s growth.

An optofluidic platform for cell-counting applications

“…12 In addition to the approaches based on Coulter counters and ow cytometry, imaging-based devices provide important modalities for automated cell-counting applications. [13][14][15][16] One example of a widely used automated cell-counting device is Countess 3 (Thermo Fisher Scientic) that counts cells using image processing and machine learning algorithms. The device employs reusable slides that have two chambers for sample loading, e.g., 20 mL celltrypan blue mixture, with a concentration capacity of 1 × 10 4 to 1 × 10 7 cells per mL.…”