Development and Application of New Methods to Measure Bacterial Activity and Nutrients in Seawater in Reverse Osmosis (SWRO)

ATP is a biomarker for biomass and can be used as a valuable indicator for biofouling. Until now, ATP in seawater could not be measured using luciferin/luciferase reaction due to interference from salt. In this work we describe new methods to measure microbial ATP in seawater. The new method involves extraction of ATP directly from biomass in seawater, followed by detection of microbial ATP using novel reagents optimized for application in seawater. We show that the new ATP method is a promising tool for monitoring microbial growth in seawater, and can also be used to determine the concentration of Assimilable Organic Carbon (AOC) in seawater.