lgae can be used to treat wastewater and manure while producing a feedstock for renewable energy. Algae require nutrients to achieve their maximum growth and manure could provide those nutrients, thereby reducing the cost of algae production and the impact of manure treatment. Algae concentration during cultivation is a critical variable that is difficult to measure due to the high concentration of suspended solids present in manure . This dissertation addresses methods to measure algae concentration in the presence of manure solids.
Quantifying the algae concentration gravimetrically or by optical density was unreliable due to manure solids interfering with the measurement. Cell counting to determine algae concentration was accurate but time consuming, subjective, required dilution of concentrated samples and only small sample volumes could be measured. Chlorophyll extraction was a consistent method to determine algae concentration in manure based media, but the model had to be adjusted to account for solids interference. The proposed equation predicted chlorophyll concentration from Chlorella vulgaris in dairy manure better than the reference equation. Different algae strains ( Chlorella vulgaris, Cylindrocystis sp, and Scenedesmus sp.) and manure sources (dairy, beef, swine, and sheep) were used to validate the proposed equation and all combinations had a ...