Itrax micro X-ray fluorescence (μXRF) for soft biological tissues

Patricia Gadd, Karthik Gopi, Jesmond Sammut, Neil Saintilan, Jagoda Crawford, Debashish Mazumder*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    10 Citations (Scopus)
    66 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Determination of the elemental composition of soft biological tissue is a time-consuming and tedious process when using traditional analytical techniques. In this method, micro X-ray fluorescence (μXRF) via Itrax, a scanning instrument, was used to determine elemental abundance at a resolution of 200 μm. Itrax μXRF was initially designed for elemental profiling of geological cores, and the capability of this technique was extended to soft biological tissue samples. The samples were dried and ground into a fine powder before analysis. The scanner generates elemental values as counts per 1 mm and these values are standardised to obtain the relative elemental abundance of the elements present in the samples. The acquired data can be used for environmental and biological research. • No literature could be found whereby the capability of Itrax μXRF has been extended to soft biological tissue samples.• The major advantages Itrax has over conventional methods is that it is a simultaneous technique which allows data to be acquired for over 30 elements at once with minimal sample preparation.• It is a non-destructive process where the samples can be re-used for additional analyses if necessary; this is especially useful when there is only a limited amount of sample available for other analyses.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1267-1271
    Number of pages5
    JournalMethodsX
    Volume5
    Early online date6 Oct 2018
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2018

    Bibliographical note

    Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

    Keywords

    • Biological samples
    • Determining the elemental profile of soft biological tissue samples through Itrax
    • Elemental profile
    • Itrax
    • Micro X-ray fluorescence

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