8 - Smartphones as Chemometric applications

Abstract

Smartphones first appear in the world around the 1990s. Such devices are made to make and receive calls, messages, and facsimiles and especially in the situations of a pandemic like COVID-19, they are the only source to be connected with the family, friends, and the world as a whole. Their ability to store additional applications and information has made them emerged as an alternative to the primitive analytical instruments. The analytical instruments used so far are expensive and heavy; require trained personnel for their operations. But, the availability of high-quality cameras, low cost, ease of operation of smartphones is making them the easily accessible detection tool. This aspect of smartphone analysis has been taken into a good advantage and varied work has been published in this context. In addition to cost-cutting, it also reduces the time required for the analysis as only a single picture can serve the purpose of repeatability and reproducibility tests. This book chapter provides an overview of recent applications of smartphones in various fields of analytical chemistry along with the future perspective. The rate at which smartphone use is increasing and its technology is advancing, it has a huge potential to replace the analytical instruments. Further, they can be used in the real-time detection of almost all types of forensic exhibits.