Process models can be used for model-based control strategies, but model development is a time-consuming and laborious task. To reduce the modeling effort, a new structured compartment model was developed, which may easily be adapted to different cultivation processes. The proposed six-compartment model was used to describe the time courses of cultivations of bacteria, yeast, fungi, and mammalian cell lines, namely, Escherichia coli, Lactobacillus delbrueckii, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Cyathus striatus, and a hybridoma mammalian cell line. The model can describe the time courses of important state variables and can be adapted to the cultivation processes by parameterization. This reduces the modeling effort for a new process significantly.
