Agricultura no. 3 - 4 (115-116)/2020 Agriculture - 134 - EFFECTS OF PHARMACEUTICALS PRESENCE IN AGROECOSYSTEM ON VOLATILE AROMA CONTENT IN TOMATO FRUIT KOVACS 1,2) Emoke Dalma, Luminita SILAGHI-DUMITRESCU 2) , Melinda Haydee KOVACS 1) , Lech WOJCIECH SZAJDAK 3) , Cecilia ROMAN 1) 1) Research Institute for Analytical Instrumentation, INCDO-INOE 2000, Donath 67, 400293, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, dalma.kovacs@icia.ro 2) Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Faculty, Babes-Bolyai University, Arany Janos 11, 400028, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 3) Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment of Polish Academy of Sciences, Bukowska 19, 60-809, Poznan, Poland Abstract. The aim of this work was to assess the potential impact of two commonly used pharmaceuticals (azithromycin and ibuprofen) on tomato quality. The experiments were carried out upon controlled exposure box experiments at different amount of azithromycin (0.5 – 5 mgkg -1 ) and ibuprofen (50 – 500 µgkg -1 ). The results showed that tomato fruits have a higher uptake rate for ibuprofen (6.3 – 11.2 %) compared to the azithromycin that was between 2.2 – 3.2 %. However, pharmaceutical active compounds uptake amount was lower in tomato fruits compared to those detected in grown medium. Both, ibuprofen and azithromycin impact the sensory quality of tomato due to changes in volatile aroma content, especially of those derived of fatty acids (C6 and C5). Keywords: azithromycin, ibuprofen, uptake, tomato, volatile aroma content INTRODUCTION The use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer is a common practice in agriculture. In Europe, more than 40 % of the produced sludge is applied on soils (Fijalkowski et al., 2017). The Sewage Sludge Directive, (86/278/EEC) that rules sewage sludge application, states that there is reduced probability of heavy metals and pathogens incorporation into soil profile (European Commission, 1986). Previous works highlight the presence of several hazardous elements in wastewater treatment plants end products (Clarke and Smith, 2011). Pharmaceuticals are in this group of hazardous elements and can be found in wastewater treatment effluents (Brown and Wong, 2018; Paiga et al., 2019; Kolecka et al., 2019), sludge by-products (Ivanova et al., 2018; Martin et al., 2012). These components are very resistance to degradation. As consequence of the increasing use of pharmaceutical products for humans and animals, their content in wastewater is growing (Pan and Chu, 2017; Verlicchi and Zambello, 2015) and consequently in agroecosystems (Biel-Maeso et al., 2018). Recent studies found that pharmaceutical active compounds can be uptake by crops (Calderon-Preciado, 2011), such as potatoes (Conde-Cid, 2018), lettuce (Azanu et al., 2018). The impact of pharmaceutical active compounds on crops development and quality, are issues of growing concern since it has been reported that some pharmaceutical compounds can cause biochemical transformation of carbon and nitrogen in soil (Du and Liu, 2012), changing nutrient availability (Hammad et al., 2018), germination (Minden et al., 2017) and root growth (Carvalho et al., 2014; Pan