Ratiometric Lanthanide Metal‐Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for Smartphone‐Assisted Visual Detection of Food Contaminants and Water: A Review

Developing a reliable portable biosensor is crucial for ensuring food safety and human health. This involves accurately detecting contaminants in food and water at their source. Smartphone cameras have recently become useful for capturing color or fluorescence changes that occur when a probe interacts with specific molecules on paper or in a chemical solution. Ratiometric designs, which self‐calibrate and minimize the impact of environmental changes, are gaining popularity. These designs rely on color changes or fluorescence shifts, which are easily assessable with smartphones. This overview highlights advances in ratiometric optical sensing using Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) with lanthanide components coupled with smartphones. These advancements allow contaminants in food and water to be visually identified. The article explains the principles, properties, and applications of color changes for visual detection in food safety. Using lanthanide metal‐organic frameworks with smartphones offers a potent method to detect contaminants, enhancing food safety and safeguarding human health. The integration of lanthanide metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) with smartphones as dependable portable biosensors offers a potent method for detecting contaminants, reinforcing food safety protocols, and ensuring the overall well‐being of human health. This involves the precise identification of contaminants in food and water at their origin. Recent advancements in smartphone camera capabilities go beyond conventional functions, now adept at capturing variations in color or fluorescence resulting from the interaction of a probe with specific molecules on paper or in a chemical solution. The growing popularity of ratiometric designs is particularly noteworthy, as these systems autonomously calibrate and minimize the impact of environmental changes. They rely on easily perceptible alterations in color or fluorescence shifts, discernible through smartphones.