Title: Off to the Nit[races]; KNO3 effect on Picochlorum oklahomense growth

Abstract

Due to the global use of energy increasing, microalgae is beginning to be used as a potential source of biofuel production. Microalgae has several advantages in the biofuel field such as its ability to produce a variety of fuel end products, having a higher biomass yield and lipid content per unit area per unit time than other biomass sources, and it can be grown in a various amount of ways. We compared the effect of potassium nitrate on the growth rate of Picochlorum oklahomense. To test this, we created a photobioreactor and counted the cells which allowed us to see the difference in growth between different concentrations of potassium nitrate. We hypothesized that as the level of potassium nitrate increases in the solution, the growth rate of the algae would increase. After two weeks of experiments, we found that the overall trend in our data was an increase in algae growth as the concentration of potassium nitrate increased.