With the growing importance of domesticated animals as both a food source (i.e. livestock) as well as pets and service animals, their health is important. Therefore, it is imperative to monitor the nutrient content in animal feed. Nutrients exist in a variety of forms, including biological, organics, minerals, metals, and vitamins, which must be accurately measured to ensure that the feed meets the nutritional needs of the animals. Due to the importance of the analysis, a variety of standardized methods have been developed to ensure accurate nutrient analysis.
Most mineral and metallic nutrients are present at high concentrations and can be measured with atomic absorption (AA), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), or ICP mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). ICP-OES is perhaps the preferred instrument for performing these analyses as it strikes the best balance between simplicity, ruggedness, matrix tolerance, accuracy, sample throughput, and cost.
This work discusses the analysis of animal feed by ICP-OES following EN 15621 guidelines, demonstrating the advantages of PerkinElmer’s Avio® 550 Max fully simultaneous ICP-OES for this application.