Theoretical and experimental yields for photoautotrophic, mixotrophic, and photoheterotrophic growth

Abstract

Available electron methods are presented and used to estimate theoretical energetic growth yields for photoautotrophic, mixotrophic, and photoheterotrophic growth of algae and photosynthetic bacteria. The theoretical yields are compared to experimental values reported previously. For photoautotrophic and mixotrophic growth of algae experimental values that approach and even exceed the theoretical values have been reported in the literature. For photosynthetic bacteria experimental yields are much smaller than thetheoretical maximum values.