Abstract
Diatoms are unicellular microalgae enclosed in a hierarchically structured silica cell wall that play a significant role in maintaining the health of the planet’s ecosystem. As one of the main photosynthesizers, they are responsible for 20–25% of the world’s oxygen release and carbon fixation. In order to develop technologies for the efficient extraction of carbon dioxide, for example, using bioreactors that provide optimal conditions for the growth of diatoms, it is also necessary to effectively track the diatom lifecycle, as well as control parameters that affect their growth. Here we offer a simple device consisting of LED illumination with a central wavelength of 505 nm that allows to monitor changes in diatom concentrations. We examined marine centric and freshwater pennate diatom strains with different morphologies, sizes, and volumes and obtained a linear dependence of the measured transmission on the concentration. The results were compared with the spectrophotometric approach, which showed a higher inaccuracy with respect to the linear fit. We believe that such an optical setup can be used to solve the problems of continuous flow monitoring of algae both in bioreactors as well as in their natural environment.
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