Assessment of the ED-XRF technique to quantify mineral elements in nonlyophilised milk and cheese

The interest in analytical methods that accurately measure or predict the elemental profile of dairy foods has been steadily rising. The purpose of this study was to assess the robustness of the energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (ED-XRF) technique for the prediction of mineral elements in milk and cheese, avoiding any sample preparation steps. Results highlighted relatively low accuracy of the ED-XRF technique for the quantification of milk mineral elements, with coefficients of determination in validation (R2v) from 0.03 (magnesium) to 0.39 (phosphorus). Greater accuracies were obtained for the quantification of cheese minerals, with R2v from 0.26 (sodium) to 0.69 (calcium).