The oxygen mass transfer coef®cient often serves to compare the ef®ciency of bioreactors and their mixing devices as well as being an important scale-up factor. In submerged fermentation, four methods are available to estimate the overall oxygen mass transfer coef®cient (K L a): the dynamic method, the stationary method based on a previous determination of the oxygen uptake rate (Q O 2 X), the gaseous oxygen balance and the carbon dioxide balance. Each method provides a distinct estimation of the value of K L a. Data reconciliation was used to obtain a more probable value of K L a during the production of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, performed in 22.5-l fed-batch bioreactor. The estimate of K L a is obtained by minimising an objective function that includes measurement terms and oxygen conservation models, each being weighted according to their level of con®dence. Weighting factors of measurement terms were taken as their respective inverse variance whereas weighting factors of oxygen conservation models were obtained using Monte Carlo simulations. Results show that more coherent and precise estimations of K L a are obtained.List of symbols C L dissolved oxygen concentration, mol/m 3 C 0 L pseudo-steady-state dissolved oxygen concentration recorded at the initiation of the dynamic method, mol/m 3 C Ã L dissolved oxygen concentration in equilibrium with mean gaseous oxygen concentration, mol/m 3 C P dissolved oxygen concentration recorded by the probe, mol/m 3 K L a overall oxygen mass transfer coef®cient, s À1 J objective function P pressure, Pa Q G gas¯ow rate, m 3 /s Q O 2 X oxygen uptake rate, mol/m 3 s R gas constant, 8.306 Pa m 3 /(mol K) S substrate, mol/m 3 RQ respiratory quotient T temperature, K V L liquid volume in the fermenter, m 3 y gaseous mole fractionGreek letters a weighting factor associated to each term in the objective function b relative weighting factor between measurements and conservation models s P time constant of the dissolved oxygen probe, s