Abstract: A highly efficient diesel degrading strain was isolated from petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated soil at the decommission-site of a petrochemical plant. The strain was identified as Bordetella by morphological observation and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, named Bordetella sp.T3. T3 is suitable to grow in medium temperature and weak alkaline environment. It could degrade diesel oil under the conditions of a diesel volume fraction of 1%,  an inoculation amount (φ) of 2%,a temperature of 30 ℃ and a pH of 8.0, and the degradation rate of diesel could reach 89.79% on the 7th day. T3 could tolerate high content of 10% diesel, and the degradation rate of diesel was 38.57% under optimal culture condition for 7 days. The results of degradation spectrogram analysis showed that T3 could effectively degrade the main components (C₁₀-C₂₂) of diesel, and had a good application potential for remediation of petroleum hydrocarbon pollutants.

Key words: Bordetella, diesel, screening and identification, biodegration, degradation characteristics