Rapid analysis of Na, Mg, Ca, Fe, and Zn in breakfast cereals (granola type) by energy dispersive‐X‐ray fluorescence

Abstract

Energy dispersive‐X‐ray fluorescence (ED‐XRF) is a well spread near‐line analytical technique, suitable for easy and rapid measurement of major elements and/or trace elements especially in many different food matrices. This study demonstrates the fitness for purpose of this method to ensure the correct addition of minerals during breakfast cereal production. Indeed, variations in process and in raw material compositions may lead to values out of legal tolerance, and thus quality controls need to be regularly performed to meet the release compliance criteria. Using such analytical technique close to production lines can allow controls that are more systematic as well as avoiding the shipment of numerous samples for reference method analyses often done to external laboratories. Thus, ED‐XRF allows to ensure finished products compliance with product declarations. A commercial ED‐XRF device was used during this study. Within 7 min of analytical time for two replicates/sample, the developed method gave accurate results for the quantification of Na, Mg, Ca, Fe, and Zn in breakfast cereals without any proportional biases between ED‐XRF and reference method (inductively coupled plasma‐atomic emission spectrometry) results.

Screening Ca concentration in staple food crops with energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF)

“…Ca is a relatively light element, consequently Ca fluorescence is more significantly attenuated in the air atmosphere (Towett et al 2016) when compared to heavier elements (e.g., Fe and Zn). To mitigate this effect, Ca analysis with XRF is often conducted under vacuum (Perring and Andrey 2018;Perring and Blanc 2008;Perring et al 2019;Perring et al 2016). However, the requirement for samples being ground, pressed and analysed under a vacuum increases both the time and cost of analysis.…”

“…EDXRF requires minimal sample preparation and a fast non-destructive analysis requiring minimal consumables and a rapid analysis time. EDXRF analysis of Ca in various food products has been reported previously (Perring and Andrey 2003;Perring and Andrey 2018;Perring et al 2019) in plants and food crops (Ekinci et al 2004;Guild and Stangoulis 2021;Kalcsits 2016). To develop a robust XRF calibration it is essential to have samples with robust reference values and a wide range of concentrations for the element(s) of interest.…”

Effects of maize straw treated with various levels of CaO and moisture on composition, structure, and digestion by in vitro gas production

“…The XRF was equipped with the FP-Multi software (Panalytical, Almelo, Netherlands). The samples were loaded, and the measurements were obtained following the instructions of the FP-Multi software [ 15 ].…”

Vignetted photon fields, recharacterisation of V Kα, and reducing X‐ray uncertainties by a factor of two

“…[ 3 ] X‐ray diffraction is also the only method to measure characteristic atomic energy eigenvalues for medium‐ to high‐Z elements, which has widespread applications in chemistry, [ 4 ] astrophysics, [ 5 ] plasma physics, [ 6 ] nano‐powders, [ 7 ] and agriculture. [ 8 ] Furthermore, accurate X‐ray diffraction has the potential to give insights into new physics by testing fundamental constants in quantum electrodynamics. [ 9–12 ] Needless to say, significant improvements to determine photon energies in the X‐ray regime will improve the quality of data and will further research in all these fields.…”