Multi-elemental Analysis by NCS NX-200 Energy Dispersion X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry and Its Application on the Traceability of Soybean Origin a College of Food Science and Engineering, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun 130118, China b Institute of Quality Standard and Testing Technology for Agro-products, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Key Laboratory of Agro-food Safety and Quality, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Beijing 100081, China Accepted: Feb. 6, 2020; Published: Feb. 25, 2020. Considering the lower analytical sensitivity, numerous ED-XRF manufacturers are committed to improve the instrumental performance.37 For example, the NX-100S ED-XRF from NCS Testing Technology Co., Ltd.(Beijing, China) have been reported to detect Cd in soil and food samples as low as < 0.1 mg kg-1. These ED-XRF instruments can be attached to a car or be loaded into a special suitcase for on-site use with a battery. Therefore, in this work, a miniaturized ED-XRF was used for the multi-elemental analysis of soybean samples from five main producing areas in northern China (the Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Henan provinces) after establishing instrumental optimization and calibration. To analyze the analytical results, the multi-layer perceptron belonging to artificial neural network was carefully studied and utilized to establish a provenance model. The ED-XRF proved to be effective and efficient to measure micro and trace multi-elements for the fast identification of soybean origin.