Systematic generation of identifiable macroscopic reaction schemes — Application to a perfusion cell culture

Mathematical modelling of cell culture processes is particularly useful for simulation, optimisation and control. Building models for such bioprocesses presents challenges at all stages of model development. In order to achieve model simplicity, the system of mass balances for the macroscopic species involved in a reaction scheme is generally used. However, the underlying reaction scheme is usually deduced from intuition, process knowledge and trial and error. This paper shows, in the case of a perfusion culture, the efficiency of a systematic procedure to generate and compare all the identifiable reaction schemes. Based on the best reaction scheme, a complete model is derived, which allows the process dynamic behavior to be reproduced.