I would like to know if there is any suitable method or reference paper about measuring nitrogen cell quota of algae without elemental analyzer. Some published papers mentioned about measuring particulate organic nitrogen by filtering samples through pre-combusted GF/F filters, fumed with acid in deccicator, pelleted in aluminium foil and measured using elemental analyzer. Is this the only method or there is any other alternatives?
You can follow these articles -
Article Estimates of Cell Quotas of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in Accum...
The determination of nitrogen status in microalgae (https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/61/m061p297.pdf)
You may measure organic nitrogen and organic phosphorous of algal biomass using the chemical spectrophotometric methods. Then you may divide it with the cell numbers (cell abundance) equivalent to unit algal biomass used for the measurement of organic nitrogen and phosphorous. Then it may be expressed as P or N units/Cell.
Sheikh Mohammad Famim Ahmed thank you for the reference. I went through that paper but unfortunately it only describes more about the cell-quota models and equations, not about the methods in details.
Shailesh Kumar Patidar I was thinking about measuring directly N content of algal cells from the filter papers using chemical spectrophotometric methods not using the filtrate. But first, I need to find out how to break the cells and retrieve all the N content sufficiently before proceed to the spectrophotometric method. I was thinking between sonication or chemical lysis or combustion. Which one should be the best option?
Kjeldahl digestion (chemical lysis) is a good alternative, if you want to go for spectrophotometric methods. I was only talking about wet algal biomass (particulate biomaterial on 0.22/0.45 μm size whatman filter). But, to express cell quota, you also need cell abundance data or relationship between cell number and total cell weight of same species of similar culture/growth phase condition. Methods for plant material for nutrient/ element analysis employing different digestion techniques will also help.
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