Chemometric Modeling of Microalgal Nutrient Sequestration as a Function of Their Chemical Environment

ABSTRACTMarine microalgae sequester large quantities of inorganic compounds by way of photosynthesis. Therefore, phytoplankton has a considerable environmental impact as it contributes to counter-balancing anthropogenic releases of CO2. However, open questions remain regarding interactions between microalgae and their environment in particular the inorganic compounds which cells consume as nutrients. On the other hand, Michaelis–Menten (MM) kinetics links environmental chemistry and microbiology as it concurrently explains the cells’ uptake of nutrients and utilization for cell production. Thereby, cells modify the chemical composition of their growing environment, which in turn is hypothesized to impact the cells’ sequestration capabilities. However, the system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that represents MM cannot be solved without further considerations, as it contains unknown physiological parameters. These parameters though are of central interest, as they describe the cells’ compound up...