Rapid detection of arsenic, cadmium and lead content in wheat flour by portable high-sensitivity X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy technology

Abstract

ObjectiveA portable high-sensitivity X-ray fluorescence spectrometry method was established to directly and quickly determine the content of arsenic， cadmium and lead in wheat flour.MethodsPart of the sample was put into the sample cup， and then directly put the sample cup into the portable high-sensitivity X-ray fluorescence spectrometer for testing. The testing time， sample compactness， and testing thickness of the instrument were optimized and applied to the detection of different types of wheat flour.ResultsThe relative standard deviation （RSD， n=6） of the precision was between 0.6% and 4.8%， and the recovery rate was 78.3%-120.4%. The detection limits of lead， cadmium and arsenic were 0.06 mg/kg， 0.06 mg/kg， 0.05 mg/kg， the quantification limits were 0.19 mg/kg， 0.19 mg/kg and 0.17 mg/kg， respectively. The correlation coefficient of portable highly sensitive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was greater than 0.98.ConclusionThe method has relatively high precision， good detection limit and quantification limit， and can meet the requirements of simultaneous rapid detection of multiple heavy metal elements in wheat flour.

Keywords

• x-ray fluorescence
• rapid detection
• wheat flour
• heavy metals