Portable and low-cost fluorometer for phytoplankton monitoring

"IEEE Portuguese Meeting on Bioengineering, e-ISSN 2771-487X"Phytoplankton monitoring using fluorescence spectroscopy techniques has been frequently used over time. This monitoring is based on the detection of the main photosynthetic pigment, chlorophyll-a, as its concentration is widely used as a proxy of phytoplankton biomass in the water column. However, the fluorometers available for their measurement and use in the field are still quite expensive and bulky, which limit its in-situ and widespread use. This paper presents the development of a low-cost, simple and portable device for measuring phytoplankton chlorophyll-a concentration at sea. The fabricated device revealed a good performance for measuring chlorophyll-a concentrations, from 0.1 up to 75 µg/L with potential for in-situ, real-time and long-term monitoring.This work has been supported by the project Eye-on-shell (EXPL/EAM-OCE/1155/2021), and partially supported by the project PlastiSensor PTDC/EAM-OCE/6797/2020, through national funds (OE), within the scope of the Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects (IC&DT) program in all scientific domains (PTDC), through the Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. (FCT, I.P). V.M. thanks the FCT for the PD/BD/150581/2020 grant. D.C. thanks the NORTE 2020 for the BD/ Do*Mar/1017/2016 grant, V.P. thanks FCT for her contract funding provided through 2021.01087.CEECIND and P.S. thanks FCT for his contract funding provided through 2021.01086.CEECIND. The authors also acknowledge the partial financial support within the R&D Unit Project Scope: UIDB/04436/2020