TY - JOUR A1 - Schaefer, Susannne A1 - Walther, Jakob A1 - Strieth, Dorina A1 - Ulber, Roland A1 - Bröckel, Ulrich T1 - Insights into the development of phototrophic biofilms in a bioreactor by a combination of X-ray microtomography and optical coherence tomography T2 - Microorganisms N2 - As productive biofilms are increasingly gaining interest in research, the quantitative monitoring of biofilm formation on- or offline for the process remains a challenge. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a fast and often used method for scanning biofilms, but it has difficulty scanning through more dense optical materials. X-ray microtomography (μCT) can measure biofilms in most geometries but is very time-consuming. By combining both methods for the first time, the weaknesses of both methods could be compensated. The phototrophic cyanobacterium Tolypothrix distorta was cultured in a moving bed photobioreactor inside a biocarrier with a semi-enclosed geometry. An automated workflow was developed to process µCT scans of the biocarriers. This allowed quantification of biomass volume and biofilm-coverage on the biocarrier, both globally and spatially resolved. At the beginning of the cultivation, a growth limitation was detected in the outer region of the carrier, presumably due to shear stress. In the later phase, light limitations could be found inside the biocarrier. µCT data and biofilm thicknesses measured by OCT displayed good correlation. The latter could therefore be used to rapidly measure the biofilm formation in a process. The methods presented here can help gain a deeper understanding of biofilms inside a process and detect any limitations. KW - Biofilm KW - Optische Kohärenztomografie KW - Cyanobakterien KW - Carrier KW - Photoreaktor KW - biofilm KW - optical coherence tomography KW - X-ray microtomography KW - biocarrier KW - cyanobacteria KW - MBBR KW - OCT KW - µCT KW - carrier KW - photobioreactor Y1 - 2021 UR - https://hst.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/133 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:tr5-1331 VL - 9 IS - 8 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - MDPI ER -