X-ray fluorescence application in food, feed, and agricultural science: a critical review

Abstract

Recently X-ray fluorescence techniques have been widely used in food and agricultural science areas. Minimal sample preparation, nondestructive analysis, high spatial resolution, and multiple elements measurements within a single sample are among its advantages. In this review, literature of X-ray fluorescence are extensively researched and summarized from food and agricultural science areas focusing on food safety inspection, food nutrition, plant science, soil science, and Ca-related problems in horticultural crops. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of X-ray fluorescence comparing with traditional analytical techniques of elements are also discussed. The more advanced technology such as developments of detector, scanning system, beamline capability among others would significantly increase future application of X-ray fluorescence techniques. Combination use of XRF with other tools such as chemometrics or data analytics would greatly improve its prediction performance. These further improvements offer exciting perspectives for the application of X-ray fluorescence in the food and agricultural science areas.

Keywords:

• X-ray fluorescence
• food safety
• food nutrition
• plant
• soil
• crop
• advantage
• disadvantage

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Na Liu (Canadian Light Source, Canada), Chithra Karunakaran (Canadian Light Source, Canada) , Lisa Miller (NSLS-BNL, New York), Randy Smith (NSLS-BNL, New York), and Hans Bechtel (ALS, Berkeley) for helpful suggestions on the paper. Canadian Light Source Inc. (CLS) at University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada) is supported by various Canadian federal and provincial funds. The National Synchrotron Light Source in Brookhaven National Laboratory (NSLS-BNL, New York, USA) and the advanced Light Source in Berkeley National Laboratory (ALS-BNL) are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Research Chair (PY) Program fund the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC-Individual Discovery Grants and NSERC-CRD Grants), the Agriculture Strategic Research Chair Program Fund, the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers (SPG), The Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA), the SaskCanola, the Agricultural Development Fund (ADF), the SaskMilk, the Saskatchewan Forage Network (SNK), the Western Grain Research Foundation (WGRF), the partial PDF fellowship (to Xin Feng) under the Misiwêskamik International Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Saskatchewan are acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.