Quantitative Analysis of Sodium in Food Raw Materials by EDX

Introduction

Atomic absorption spectrophotometry (hereinafter, AA) is generally used in elemental analysis of the mineral components and salt contained in raw materials for food products. When analyzing solids or powders by AA, chemical pretreatment such as addition of an acid followed by thermal decomposition is necessary. Because X-ray fluorescence spectrometry makes it possible to measure solids, powders, and liquid as-is with only simple pretreatment, this technique has been adopted or studied as a substitute for AA. AA is used in process control of sodium in powder raw materials for food products. In this article, we conducted a comparative study of quantitative analysis of sodium by AA and a Shimadzu EDX-8100 energy-dispersive Xray fluorescence spectrometer. Two pretreatment methods were examined, pressure forming (hereinafter, press method) and a powder container method (hereinafter, powder method), and a certain correlation with AA was obtained with both.

March 27, 2020 GMT