Ghazanfar Ghori wrote:
Measureing CO2 in the tank will be an inaccurate way of measuring the
production. Depending on how fast the plants are consuming it, you'll get
fluctuations etc. Can't use a bubble count to measure it either,
since, like you mentioned, its diluted with air.
What probably needs to be done, is to setup two identical bare tanks,
with big reactors that will dissolve everything. Set one up with identical
yeast bottles, with one having the air input. And then at fixxed intervals
check the dissolved CO2 levels.


The dilution of the CO2 does more than make a bubble count inaccurate.
If you crank up the air input such that the CO2 is diluted to nearly
ambient air levels, then you won't get much benefit beyond what a
regular airstone hooked up to a pump would provide, no matter how high
your CO2 production rate. That is the extreme case but there will be
some reduction in the efficiency of the reactor as long as there is some
dilution of the CO2. If the bubbled air does provide additional yeast
activity, there is probably an ideal bubble rate where the benefit of
added activity most greatly outweighs the problem of dilution.

Your experimental design would measure the overall efficiency of
"improved" system, because you are measuring only what dissolves into
the water. One way a bubble count could be used would be if a baseline
bubble count of just the air pump with no yeast was established. The
CO2 production would then be anything above the baseline.