Applications of smartphones in analysis: Challenges and solutions

Abstract In situ analysis is an important strategy that has attracted important attention from the scientific community in different fields of science. However, one of the main bottlenecks of this approach is associated with the absence of analysis tools that allow such analysis with significant accuracy and precision. In this sense, several smartphone applications, including optical detection (colorimetric, fluorescence, chemiluminescence, bioluminescence and photoluminescence, pixelation and unlabeled detection), electrochemical detection, smartphone image for minimally invasive neurosurgery with microscopy have been observed in the literature as an alternative technique of analysis, highlighting the potential of this tool for in situ performance analysis. However, many challenges are still observed using smartphone technology as analysis tools. In this chapter, we describe the main smartphone applications in the areas of chemistry, clinical, biological, environmental and forensics, highlighting the instrumentation used, advantages and limitation of each approach investigated.