Chiang Mai Journal of Science

Microalgae are key primary producers and their biomass is widely applied for the production of pharmaceutics, bioactive compounds and energy. Conventionally, the content of algal chlorophyll is considered an index for algal biomass. However, this study, we estimated algal biomass by direct measurement of total suspended solids (TSS) and correlated it with chlorophyll content. The results showed mean chlorophyll-a equal to 1.05 mg/L; chlorophyll-b 0.51 mg/L and chlorophyll-a+b 1.56 mg/L. Algal biomass as 161 mg/L was measured by dry weight (TSS). In statistical t-tests, F-tests and all the tested growth models, such as linear, quadratic, cubic, power, compound, inverse, logarithmic, exponential, s-curve and logistic models, we did not find any discernible relationship between all chlorophyll indices and TSS biomass. Hence, the conventional method of chlorophyll measurement might not be a good index for biomass estimation.