Bio-speckle for microalgae growth monitoring in laboratory scale photobioreactor

摘要

Microalgae are widely used in different industries – pharmaceutical, cosmetic, in those dealing with pollution prevention, aquaculture and especially biofuels. Because of the wide range of use, there is an active interest in microalgae large - scale cultivat ion. Standard techniques for algae biomass production requires cultivation in nutritious culture media, and well - defined external parameters, such as controlled conditions of light intensity, temperature and aeration gas. Commercial production of microalga e is expensive, and the addition of nutrients in culture media contributes to its high cost. The evaluation of the quality of culture media using wastewater effluents or agro - industrial waste can be a way to reduce algal cultures costs. This research aims to develop a noninvasive method for the testing of effectiveness of agro - industrial waste, previously treated, as culture media through daily monitoring of population increase microalgae. We found that it is possible to detect the growth of the microorgani sms by using statistical cumulants as numerical approaches for analyzing the dynamic speckle patterns produced by samples of Chrorella Vulgaris algae cultivated in bold basal culture medium.