Respiration was measured in an experimental set-up consisting of an open aeration batch reactor (500
ml working volume), as shown in Fig.1, the system was kept at a temperature of 20 ± 1 ° C using a
thermal enclosure and mixing was obtained by magnetic stirring. Oxygen was measured with an oxygen
electrode connected to OXI 357 oxygen measuring unit from WTW.
Oxygen measurements were logged by LINSEIS recorder, and respiration rates were then calculated by
linear regression of all the obtained dissolved oxygen (DO) data.