Portable, Benchtop and Micro‐XRF in Agriculture—Present and Future From the Hardware Perspective

ABSTRACT X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry has been an important tool in agricultural studies recently. This technique allows the multielemental, direct, and in situ analysis. The objective of this review is to evaluate the use of XRF in agriculture focusing on plant and soil samples based on indexed articles in the Scopus database from 2020 to 2024. Particularly, the review evaluated the hardware XRF set‐up (portable XRF, benchtop, and micro‐XRF), the analysis site, and instrumental operational conditions (measurement time (s), filter, atmosphere (air, vacuum, and He)), X‐ray tube voltage (kV) and current (μA), and detector. We highlight the major use of the pXRF for both matrices. The laboratory is the prevailing analysis site, even for the pXRF application. A worrisome finding from this review was the lack of proper description of the instrumental operational conditions, observed in 26% to 78% of the studies verified, considering the above‐mentioned parameters for plant and soil matrices. In short, this review unfolds the increasing use of XRF and features of its set‐up and analysis configuration in agriculture. In addition, it also alerts to the improper description of the operational conditions, as well as discusses opportunities, challenges, and future perspectives for advancing XRF applications in agriculture from the hardware standpoint.