Chlorophyll is not accurate measurement for algal biomass

Microalgae are key primary producers and their biomass is widely applied for theproduction of pharmaceutics, bioactive compounds and energy. Conventionally, the contentof algal chlorophyll is considered an index for algal biomass. However, this study, we estimatedalgal biomass by direct measurement of total suspended solids (TSS) and correlated it withchlorophyll content. The results showed mean chlorophyll-a equal to 1.05 mg/L; chlorophyllb0.51 mg/L and chlorophyll-a+b 1.56 mg/L. Algal biomass as 161 mg/L was measured bydry 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 logisticmodels, we did not find any discernible relationship between all chlorophyll indices and TSSbiomass. Hence, the conventional method of chlorophyll measurement might not be a goodindex for biomass estimation