Development and optimisation of ex situ portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy for heterogenous post-metallurgical sites

Portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (pXRF) is widely used for rapid measurement of metals in soils, however, thorough evaluation of common pre-processing methods and their effectiveness is limited. This study addresses processing methods using samples collected at a highly heterogeneous post-metallurgical site containing, basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS) slag and soil; the former being an important source of potentially toxic and valuable elements. Impact of pre-treatment processes, (sieving, drying, grinding, sample vessel, and ignition) on the accuracy of pXRF measurements was compared against reference ICP-MS measurements.Of the twelve elements detected, four showed qualitative (Cr and Fe r² ≥ 0.60, RSD ≤ 30%) or quantitative (Mn and Ca r² ≥ 0.70, RSD ≤ 20%) measurements for raw samples. Improving to six elements after pre-processing (Sr qualitative, and Pb, Cr, Mn, Ca, Fe quantitative). Sieving and grinding improved precision (average RSD fell by 7.17 and 8.37% respectively), while drying and grinding enhanced accuracy (average r² increased by 0.03 and 0.10 respectively). This study provides the first evidence that organic matter does not significantly impact pXRF accuracy or precision (average r² and RSD changed by zero and - 0.32%, respectively). The two distinct matrices (BOS slag and soil) on-site resulted in a bimodal concentration distribution and a negative correlation for Ti. Importantly, this research proposes that not all common pre-processing steps are necessary to generate high-quality data due to their negligible impact on accuracy or precision (such as incineration to remove organic matter), thereby increasing the speed and reducing the cost of data collection.