SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC MONITORING OF BIOFOULING

The monitoring of biofouling is continuously evolving with new and bet ter techniques being developed all the time. The major drawback of the currently used techniques is that these methods are complicated and t ime-consuming, involving culturing and counting of attached organisms. A continuously circulating batch culture system was therefore designe d to study biofouling spectrophotometrically. Absorbance of bacteria a ttached to a glass tube was compared with direct counts done on DAPI-s tained bacteria attached to 3CR12 coupons. Direct measurements of abso rbance correlated well with the total counts obtained using the DAPI t echnique (r(2) = 0.925). Spectrophotometry proved to be an easy, inexp ensive and reliable alternative to techniques requiring laborious coun ting of microorganisms, for example the DAPI technique, for quantifica tion of biofouling. Copyright (C) 1996 IAWQ.