Flow Injection, Overlooked Techniques in Forensic Analysis

Since their introduction in the mid-1970s, flow injection (FI) techniques have gained a world-wide popularity. FI techniques are automated, miniaturized, versatile, and inexpensive analytical tools for handling reagents and samples and consequently for conducting procedures related to wet chemical analysis. Due to their tremendous benefits, FI techniques have proven to be significant applications to such analytical fields as pharmaceutical, environmental, biochemical, and food. Currently, more than 10,000 publications reporting various applications of FI techniques can be retrieved from the literature. However, FI techniques have not yet received an adequate attention to the field of forensic analysis; less than 30 publications were reported. The main objective of the current article is to draw attention to the potential of FI techniques to forensic analytical chemists. The article provides a comprehensive review of the applications of FI techniques to forensic chemical analysis, which covers the literature since the inception of the techniques. The article also offers a brief historical background on the developments of the generation and versions of the techniques while highlighting their advantages. In addition, future perspectives in the applications of FI techniques to forensic analysis are discussed.