Iron deficiency is the leading cause of death in childbirth. Zinc deficiency is linked to diarrhea, which kills nine million children a year. Micronutrient supplementation can go a long way to reversing such conditions, and farmers around the world are stepping up efforts to breed zinc- and iron-rich grains. As these grains find their way into infant cereals, milk-based powders, and premixes, precise monitoring of nutrient content is critical.
Traditional lab-based quality control methods add substantial costs and delays to a process already operating with thin margins. Promising to change all of this is a new generation of high-resolution rapid screening technology that uses ED-XRF spectroscopy in an instrument designed specifically to conduct lab-quality elemental analyses at the production line.