The Z- and Laplace transforms are mathematical techniques applied to solve difference equations and differential equations, respectively. Mathematical models used to describe cell growth, substrate consumption and product formation in bioprocesses can be represented by these types of equations. Thus, in this work, the fermentation process of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was modeled using different models from the literature, and the Z- and Laplace transforms were applied to solve the equations. Once the equations were solved, the models were represented in state space and simulated in Octave® software. Finally, the models were compared to experimental data from previous studies and to each other. Verhulst was the model that best described the process, with an average error of 4.74% for cell growth and 13.9% for substrate consumption. This work is unprecedented since no works that use the Z transform and discrete models for the representation of fermentation of this yeast were found in the literature. Even more importantly, this work proved that discrete-time models can be applied to bioprocesses with the same precision as continuous-time models.
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