Phthalates are widely used as plasticizers in many industrial products due to their chemical properties that confer flexibility and durability to building materials, lubricants, solvents, insect repellents, clothing, cosmetics, being widely distributed in the environment. Besides persistent, they are also considered endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), causing a global concern about their release into the environment, once they can alter the reproductive and endocrine health of humans systems. Under natural conditions, photodegradation and hydrolysis rates of phthalates are often very slow; therefore, microbial degradation is a natural way to treat these pollutants. In this context, three bacterial consortia (CMS, GMS and GMSS) were isolated from environmental samples from the Santos Estuarine System (SES) and were able to grow on diethyl-phthalate (DEP) as an only carbon source. From the GMSS consortium, three different strains were isolated and identified as Burkholderia cepacia, Pseudomonas koreensis and Ralstonia pickettii by molecular and mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-Biotyper) techniques. Considering there are no reports about Ralstonia genus on phthalates degradation, this strain was chosen to proceed the kinetics experiments. Ralstonia pickettii revealed a great ability to degrade DEP (300 mg/L) in less than 24 h. This is the first report implicating R. pickettii in DEP degradation.

邻苯二甲酸酯因其化学特性而赋予建筑材料，润滑剂，溶剂，驱虫剂，衣物，化妆品广泛的环境中的柔韧性和耐久性，因此被广泛用作许多工业产品中的增塑剂。除了持久性外，它们还被认为是破坏内分泌的化合物（EDC），一旦它们可以改变人类系统的生殖和内分泌健康，就会引起人们对它们向环境中释放的担忧。在自然条件下，邻苯二甲酸酯的光降解和水解速度通常很慢。因此，微生物降解是处理这些污染物的自然方法。在这种情况下，三个细菌联盟（CMS，GMS和GMSS是从Santos Estuarine System（SES）的环境样品中分离出来的，它们能够在邻苯二甲酸二乙酯（DEP）上作为唯一碳源生长。从GMSS联盟中，分离出三种不同的菌株，并将其鉴定为通过分子和质谱（MALDI-TOF-Biotyper）技术对洋葱伯克霍尔德氏菌，红假单胞菌和波氏拟南芥进行了鉴定。考虑到没有关于Ralstonia属对邻苯二甲酸酯降解的报道，选择该菌株进行动力学实验。Ralstonia pickettii显示了在不到24小时的时间内即可降解DEP（300 mg / L）的强大能力。这是第一个有关R. pickettii参与DEP降解的报告。