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pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc

Chemistry on the Go: Review of Chemistry Apps on Smartphones


Diana Libman and Ling Huang*
Chemistry Department, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York 11549, United States
S Supporting Information
*

ABSTRACT: Chemistry-related software, or chemistry apps, on hand-held and portable


touch-controlled computers such as smartphones and iPods are seeing dramatic growth
with increasing adoption rates. This review covers about 30 popular and mostly free apps
that can be used to learn chemistry and to serve as reference or research tools. The target
audience includes students in high school, college, and graduate school, chemical
professionals, and teachers.

KEYWORDS: First-year Undergraduate/General, Upper-division Undergraduate, Graduate Education/Research,


Interdiciplinary/Multidiciplinary, Computer Based Learning, Internet/Web-Based learning

site describes a handful of paid apps that are suitable for


professional chemists or chemical engineers8 whereas the
others put more emphasis on the convenient access to
chemistry journals online.9,10 There is even a Chemical
Mahjong game app to make learning chemistry more fun and
interesting.11 Dierentiating from existing articles, our review
intends to cover the majority of the free and popular apps
available on smartphones or iPods (both referred to as
smartphones from here on) with focuses on disciplines
(Table 1), functionalities (Figure 1), and target users (Table 2).
The applications are discussed separately, based on the two
most popular mobile operating systems: Android and iOS (see
the list of apps in alphabetical order in the Supporting
Information). The applications listed are the ones that were
found to have the highest user ratings, at least 3 out of 5 stars,
and all of the applications are either free or less than a dollar.
Most of the apps are available for iPads and Android apps for
tablets. This review discusses apps that are available on
smartphones, as these are more prevalent, aordable, and
portable than comparable tablets or laptops. In addition, only
mobile phone apps or iPod touch apps are discussed here as the
relevant devices are much smaller and easier to carry around,
which potentially increases their availability in classrooms,
laboratories, and school campuses as people already have to
carry their phone and the adoption of smartphones is increasing
everyday.1
With this review, we intend to cover a broader range of free
apps that are easily accessible and that could make a broader
impact. We have tested all the apps discussed here to give the
readers an objective opinion on the performance of each. Some

ith the drop in prices and ever-increasing computing


ability and video processing power, smartphones are
becoming widespread among high school and college students.
Nielsen reports that between 2009 and 2011 smartphone
ownership for 1317 year olds went from 16% to 40% and for
1824 year olds from 23% to 53%.1 Smartphones can serve as
powerful and convenient educational tools on a mobile
platform, which potentially encourages learning. A study by
StudyBlue found that students who used a mobile application
to study spent on average 40 min or more a week on studying.2
The iOS and Android platforms both provide a multitude of
applications that can be downloaded directly onto the phone.
These mobile applications, or apps, have a wide range of
functionalities and cover many disciplines. The rapid development of cloud computing technology also speeds up the
adoption of these mobile apps as chemical education tools or
collaborative learning platforms,3 as more programs can be
accessed through the cloud and large amount of chemical
data or structural information can be stored in the cloud.
Collaboration through the interconnection of multiple
chemistry apps was recently demonstrated as a new chemoinformatics tool to increase work eciency,4 which can be
utilized to raise the chemistry learning experience to a new
level.
A recent paper by Williams and Pence5 presented the
benets of using smartphones and similar Internet capable
devices in the classroom. In two other articles, Williams et al.
noted several specic apps for drug discovery6 and highlighted
Chemspider app as a powerful hand-held chemical search
engine.7 Several universities are beginning to implement mobile
chemistry into their curricula,8 there are also many universities
that provide online guides to mobile applications.810 One Web
2013 American Chemical Society and
Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Published: February 13, 2013


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Table 1. Chemistry Apps by Disciplines


Discipline
General and
Inorganic
Organic
Analytical
Physical
Biochemistry
a

Android

iOS

AtomDroid, Chemistry Cheat Sheets, Chemistry Mobile, Convert Pad, Molecular


Viewer 3D, Periodic Droid, Periodic Table, W Chemistry Handbook
AtomDroid, Chemistry By Designa, ChemDoodle Mobilea, Molecular Viewer
3D, W Chemistry Handbook
Chemistry Helper, EMD PTEa, PubChem Mobile, W Chemistry Handbook,
ChemSpidera
Chemistry Mobile, Convert Pad, W Chemistry Handbook
AtomDroid, ESmol, Molecular Viewer 3D, NDKmol, Promegaa

iElements, The Chemical Touch Lite


Chemistry By Designa, ChemDoodle Mobilea, Green Solvent,
Molecules, Named Reactions, Organic Name Reactions
EMD PTEa, ChemMobi (by Accelrys Inc.), ChemSpidera, GC
Calc, Green Solvent, LC Calc, MolPrime Molecules
Insensitive (by Klaus Boldt)
Amino Acid Tutor, Buer Calc, Promegaa, Genetic Code

Denotes apps available on both Android and iOS.

Figure 1. All logos are reproduced with permission from Dr. Silas Cook (Indiana University) for Organic Named Reactions, from Jon Njardarson
(Arizona University) for Chemistry by Design, from David Pellon (Nad's Tech) for Chemistry Cheat Sheets, from David Thaisrivongs
(Synthetiq Solutions) for Named Reactions, from Ivan Antonov for Genetic Code and AA Tutor, from Kevin Theisen (iChemLabs) for
ChemDoodle, from Alex Clark (Molecular Materials Informatics) for MolPrime and Green Solvent, from Brad Larson (Sunset Lake Software)
for Molecules, from Johannes Dieterich (CCB Goettingen) for Atomdroid, from Adam Hogan for Molecular Viewer 3D and Chemistry
Helper, from Takanori Nakane for ESmol and NDKMol, from ACS for ACS Mobile, from Hongping Liang for PubChem, from David
Wakstein (Accelrys Software) for ChemMobi, from Dr. David Sharpe (RSC) for ChemSpider, from Andrew Zen for Chemistry Mobile, from
Jim Simon (Agilent) for LC Calc and GC Calc, from Paulette Goldweber (Wiley) for Buer Calc, from Maciek Smuga-Otto (Promega) for
Promega, from Sunny Moon for ConvertPad, from Dr. Sebastian Fleischhauer (Merck KGaA) for EMD PTE, from Michael Harrison
(Socratica, LLC) for Periodic Table, from Max Soderstrom for iElements, and from Chris Fennell for TCT Lite.

Table 2. Chemistry Apps by Target User Groups


Level

Android

iOS

High School

EMD PTEa, Periodic Droid,a Promega

Undergraduate Introductory Courses

ChemDoodle Mobilea, Atomdroid, Chemistry Cheat Sheets, Chemistry


Helper, ConvertPad, EMD PTEa, Periodic Droid, Periodic Table, W
Chemistry Handbook
Atomdroid, Chem Doodle Mobilea, Chemistry Helper, Chemistry By Designa,
Chemistry Mobile, ConvertPad, Molecular Viewer 3D, Promegaa,
PubChem, W Chemistry Handbook, ChemSpidera
ACS Mobilea, Atomdroid, Chem Doodle Mobilea, Chemistry By Designa,
ESMol, NDKMol, Molecular Viewer 3D, Promegaa, PubChem

Undergraduate UpperLevel Courses


Graduate Level and
Professional Chemist
a

EMD PTEa, iElements, Molecules, Promegaa, The Chemical Touch


Lite
Amino Acid Tutor, ChemDoodle Mobilea, EMD PTEa, iElements,
Genetic Code, Molecules
Buer Calc, Green Solvent, ChemMobi,a ChemSpider, MolPrime,
Named Reactions, Organic Named Reactions,a Promega, Chem
Doodle Mobile,a Chemistry By Design
ACS Mobilea, Buer Calc, Chem Doodle Mobilea, Chemistry By
Designa, ChemMobi, ChemSpider, GC Calc, Green Solvent,
Insensitive, LC Calc, MolPrime, Promegaa

Denotes apps available on both Android and iOS.

of the apps presented here carry a signicant technical learning


curve, which can be explored to a deeper level. Eorts have

been made to provide a succinct review of each app without the


intention to cover everything available or remotely relevant.
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INCORPORATING APPS FOR TEACHING AND


LEARNING CHEMISTRY

Android test device, the default speed of two-nger zoom-in


could be too sensitive to complete, making the molecule
disappear on the screen. Several Android apps such as
Atomdroid, Molecular Viewer 3D (Android, by Adam
Hogan), ESmol, and NDKmol (Figure 2 right, Android,
both by Biochem_fan) can download protein les from PDB
and display the complex protein structures with stunning detail.
This could be a valuable tool for teaching protein structures and
interactions between small molecules and proteins.
ESmol can convert polymer structures into beautiful ribbon
models. It is also able to show nucleic acids in strands, ladder,
or skeletal models. Besides biomolecules such as DNA, RNA,
and proteins ESmol can display polymers and crystals in
packing mode. If the le size is bigger than 3 MB, NDKmol
from the same app developer should be used in the place of
ESmol. Both can handle PDB le formats and load MDL
MOL (=SDF) format from SD card or directly from PubChem.
Molecular Viewer 3D works with PDB, CML, MDL SD,
Sybyl Mol2 le formats. The app can display custom-drawn
structures or downloaded molecules along with 243 library
molecules. In our tests, the custom-drawn structures, however,
often resulted in app crashes possibly due to incompatible le
formats. A free and open-source software called Avogadro13
could be used to convert le formats from Chemdraw or
Chemsketch to improve the compatibility with molecular
viewer apps.
Equipped with the molecular viewer apps, students can
access simple or complex structures from a device in their
pockets and manipulate the structures to better understand
bonding and steric eects. The convenient viewing can be used
to assign NMR chemical shifts and to study the reactive sites
for organic chemistry. In one of our research projects, for
example, Atomdroid and Molecules apps are used to predict
the change in NMR chemical shift values when there are subtle
changes of derivatives on core structures of synthetic
cannabinoids, all of which were used as designer drugs.
With apps such as ESmol and NDKmol, biomolecules
become easier to touch and feel as large molecular
structures can be enlarged for detailed observations, which is
hard to achieve with physical models.

Molecular Viewer Apps

With the dramatic improvement of graphics and CPU


computing power on smartphone devices, the rotation and
rendering of three-dimensional (3-D) molecular structures can
be easily and smoothly achieved on iPhone, iPod touch, and
Android phones with the one-nger swiping or two-nger
zooming motions. Five years ago, these functions were reserved
for high-end graphics processing workstations with sophisticated software engines costing thousands of dollars. Today apps
such as Atomdroid12 (Android, by CCB Goettingen) and
Molecules (iOS, by Sunset Lake Software) can create
stunning and interactive 3-D renderings of molecular structures.
Both apps show ball-and-stick models of energy-minimized 3-D
structures as default.
Molecular viewer apps can be a useful tool in the classroom.
For example, in an organic chemistry class, as a supplement to
molecular model sets. The advantage here is that a student can
easily switch between viewing a space-lling model or a ball and
stick model. The other advantage is that larger molecules can
be used. Similarly, these types of apps can be used in
biochemistry and general chemistry to look at structures. These
models can also be used for drug-discovery research,
particularly in the investigation of the binding between a drug
molecule and a target protein. The viewer tools can be used to
evaluate the binding pocket and specically the type of
intermolecular force involved in binding (i.e., pipi stacking
and hydrogen-bonding).
Molecules can display both proteins and DNA. It also
comes equipped with a search function that utilizes PubChem
and Protein Data Bank (PDB). Once the molecule is found, it
can be downloaded directly onto the device. Several of the
Android molecular viewer apps also share the search and
download functionalities. In some cases, app users can draw
their custom molecules in a desktop or laptop computer and
upload their structures to the smartphones for display and
rendering. Care must be taken to ensure the compatibility of
le formats.
Besides ball-and stick models, Atomdroid (Figure 2 left)
can also display skeletal models along with calculated total
energy. Many of the display parameters can be ne-tuned to
optimize the presentation and maneuvering speed. In our

Study Guides and Reference Apps

Heavy textbooks, chemistry dictionaries, and reference books


such as the CRC Handbook are quickly becoming history as
hand-held devices such as smartphones are changing the way
students study, memorize, review, and utilize chemical
knowledge. Several apps address the need for portable devices
as study guides or easy chemistry helpers. The following apps
not only help high school or college students to cram for
chemistry exams, but also serve as a reminder or reference for
graduate students and experienced chemists and professionals.
For instance, a general chemistry student studying for an
exam can pull out a smartphone and use W Chemistry
Handbook (Android, by Dilthiumlabs) to quickly review the
basic concepts such as common inorganic cations and anions
covered in general chemistry. The student can also promptly
check the virtual handbook in a general chemistry lab to
retrieve a pKa value, a molecular weight, or a density for
experimental calculations.
Chemistry Cheat Sheets Free (Android, by NadsTech.com) covers the important topics in general chemistry and
organic chemistry in a concise fashion with many summary
tables and gures. One major drawback is the required

Figure 2. Examples of the 3-D molecular structures on Atomdroid


(left; reproduced with permission from Adam Hogan) and
NDKmol(right, reproduced with permission from Biochem_fan).
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cumbersome maneuvering on pages because the gures and


tables are scanned les that have been uploaded into the app.
This presents a problem when zooming in and out of the le.
Another inconvenience is the lack of a search function.
Chemistry By Design14 (Android & iOS) summarizes the
total synthesis routes of 337 compounds, most of which are of
pharmaceutical interests. The routes are categorized by name,
author, year, and drugs can be searched within the app. The app
also provides blacked out reaction conditions and intermediate
products for quizzing. It is a useful app for advanced organic
synthesis students, graduate students, and pharmaceutical
industry professionals.
Compared to Chemistry Cheat Sheets, W Chemistry
Handbook is a more comprehensive reference app for the
reviewing of basic concepts and techniques. It is carefully
separated into six major categories (Figure 3, right) with many

amino acids are arranged. This is a great app for a student at an


advanced level because it is not self-explanatory. To utilize the
app, you have to understand the amino acid and codon
concepts. It would be useful for a student in a biochemistry
class learning amino acids and codons or as a reference guide.
The stack of ashcards can usually identify a beginner
student of organic chemistry, and the erratic mumbling and
ipping over that comes with them. Today, however, a
smartphone can essentially replace that stack of ashcards.
Named Reactions Lite (iOS, by Synthetiq Solutions) is a
perfect example of that. When displayed with the device in the
vertical orientation, it provides information on reactions,
including their history, the participants, and the overall reaction.
Flipping the phone horizontally provides a stack of ashcards,
which can be ipped through. It is fun to use because of the
interactive features.
Another indispensible app for an organic chemistry student is
Organic Named Reactions (iOS, by Indiana University). The
app provides a quiz-like introduction of reactions. The format is
similar to index cards; the home screen shows a menu of four
options to choose from: reactions, mechanisms, missing
reagents, and missing products. Reactions can be viewed either
by name rst, by overall reaction rst, or both. This option also
contains an index of all the reactions. This is an intuitive system
for learning because the reactions are broken down into
separate sections. A new student of organic chemistry can
choose to learn the names rst, or the overall reaction rst, then
move on to learning reagents and products, and nally the
mechanisms. The only glitch is that there is no way to choose
which reactions is going to be presented.
Structure Drawing Apps

Figure 3. Screen views of the Periodic Table (left, reproduced with


permission from Socratica, LLC) and W Chemistry Handbook
(right, reproduced with permission from Dilthiumlabs) apps.

With the touch screen on smartphones, 2-D molecular


structures can be drawn to precision with one or two ngers.
Small molecules can be drawn on MolPrime (iOS, by
Molecular Materials Informatics, Inc.), which was covered in a
previous review,5 and ChemDoodle Mobile (iOS & Android,
by iChemLabs, LLC). ChemDoodle Mobile (Figure 4) is an

subcategories that cover most entry-level knowledge in all


branches of chemistry. For example, there are subsections for
organic compounds, salts, inorganic acids, gases, and
biomolecules under chemicals. Chemical, physical, and
other properties of the above chemicals are listed under
properties. A solution calculator is included, which helps with
reinforcing quantitative skills. A handful of constants used in
general chemistry and physical chemistry are listed under
constants. The properties of chemicals can be compared in
tabular format. All included information is searchable within the
app.
Other apps such as Chemistry Helper (Android, by Adam
Hogan) have similar functions with expanded capabilities such
as IR and NMR tables for organic functional groups, calculation
and conversion tools for analytical chemistry and physical
chemistry, solubility rules for inorganic chemistry, reduction
potentials for electrochemistry, and so forth. A periodic table is
also included. Similar tools and reference are also provided in
ChemMobile (Android, by Qan) app.
Amino Acid Tutor (iOS, by Ivan Antonov) is a useful app
for learning amino acids; it is essentially a quiz app. It is used
like a set of ash cards. The app asks to identify dierent amino
acids based on name, structure, or code. It supplements other
learning tools in the beginning of a biochemistry class. Genetic
Code (iOS, also by Ivan Antonov), is a similar type of app. It
provides the user with the names of amino acids and the bases
that code for them. This is a well-designed reference guide that
is visually pleasing. There are multiple dierent ways that the

Figure 4. Acetone structure in ChemDoodle Mobile (left) and its


integrated NMR spectra (right). Images reproduced with permission
from iChemLabs, LLC.

easy tool for sketching molecules to show energy-minimized 2D structures and to calculate simple NMR spectra. NMR and
property predictions work very well for small molecules
containing organic elements. The drawn structures can be
saved in the paid version of the app. Drawing molecular
structure on a hand-held device is often prone to mistakes at
the tapping locations, which is a constant challenge for this kind
of app.
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The limited screen sizes (ranging from 34.7 in. diagonally),


however, made drawing complex molecular structures
extremely challenging with these structure drawing apps. The
drawing often requires dexterous hand maneuvers and frequent
zooming in and out. For simple molecules often encountered in
general chemistry, these apps are suitable for the learning of
bonding, molecular geometry, molecular polarity, and Lewis
structures.
Periodic Table Apps

Besides Chemistry Helper and ChemMobile, there are


several dedicated periodic table apps on both iOS and Android.
EMD-PTE (by Merck KGaA), a highly rated app, works on
both iOS and Android. iElements (by SusaSoftX) and The
Chemical Touch Lite (by Christopher J. Fennell) are two
popular iOS apps while Periodic Droid (by DroidLa) and
Periodic Table (Figure 3 left, by Socratica, LLC) are Androidexclusive.
EMD-PTE stands out with clean HD resolution and rich
functions. It carries a calculation tool of atomic weight
percentage within a compound. Every element has a history
of discovery. The accompanied atomic property data are most
comprehensive among all periodic table apps. A small drawback
is that the small buttons could be hard to touch correctly on a
smaller screen. Overall this app has the highest rating.
Periodic Droid lists elements by atomic numbers or in the
periodic table. It comes with a quiz function for studying and
reviewing various elemental properties such radii, atomic
weights, symbols, physical properties, and history. The
elements can also be listed using the order of 16 dierent
properties. Periodic Table app is tailored more toward
learning general chemistry and reinforcing various aspects of
elemental periodicity.
iElements provides a good periodic table, with a lot of
information on each element such as its name, symbol, atomic
number, phase, density, melting point, boiling point, heats of
fusion and vaporization, specic heat, oxidation states,
ionization energies, electronegativity, covalent, atomic, and
van der Waals (VDW) radii. The app also provides a Wikipedia
link that opens up in the browser. When an element is chosen,
only the symbol and atomic number appear; for all other
information, it is necessary to click more info and an element
page comes up. Although the element group and location is
given and the table is color coded by type (halogen, metalloid,
etc.), these colors are left to the user to gure out. This could,
however, be used as an educational tool, so that students can
gure out the grouping for themselves as a review.
The Chemical Touch Lite (Figure 5) is another practical
periodic table reference. This app again gives a good amount of
information on the chemical and physical properties of each
element, including oxidation states and electronegativity. The
table is color-coded depending on the property selected, each
property has its own color-coded scale. Another helpful option
is the ability to change between dierent temperature units. For
a beginner, this table might be a bit confusing as the possible
oxidation states are not labeled clearly and the units are not
very inherently obvious. This is still a good reference tool for
someone with some familiarity with the periodic table.

Figure 5. Screen view of the The Chemical Touch Lite Edition


periodic table app. Image reproduced with permission from
Christopher J. Fennell.

engine apps such as PubChem Mobile (Android, by


CRinUS.) which leads to a plethora of chemical information
that could easily exceed the physical limit of a chemistry
handbook or encyclopedia. ACS Mobile (iOS and Android,
by American Chemical Society or ACS) leads the user to ACS
resources and literature database with links to the latest ASAP
articles. ChemSpider(by Molecular Materials Informatics,
Inc.), a powerful compound search engine, can be used as an
app on iOS devices to discover structural information,
properties, MSDS, related literature, and vendors of chemicals.7
Utility Apps

The portability of smartphones provides a unique strength in


chemistry laboratories. The following apps can be used in
various teaching and research laboratories as reference checkers
as mentioned above and also as practical operational tools for
the execution of experiments or simply for improving research
protocols.
Agilent has dedicated LC Calc and GC Calc apps for iOS
devices. LC Calc (Figure 6, right) can be used to optimize

Figure 6. Screen views of the Promega (left, reproduced with


permission from Promega) and LC Calc (right, reproduced with
permission from Agilent Technologies, Inc.) apps.

liquid chromatography column conditions using the correlation


among mobile phase ow rate, column dimensions, and back
pressure. A well-designed set of separation parameters can be
applied to improve resolution and speed. Similar to LC Calc,
GC Calc can be used to optimize gas chromatography
parameters. Both are benecial tools for separation scientist as
well as students learning chromatographic separations in
instrumental analysis.
Industrial players such as Agilent, Promega, and Merck have
made multiple apps, such as EMD-PTE, that fulll very
specialized needs. Promega (Figure 6, left) has an app with its

Research Apps

There are several chemistry reference apps beyond the simple


study guides mentioned above. As stated before, Chemistry
Helper and Chemistry Mobile can be used as reference
books for chemistry students. There are also powerful search
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attract students to obtain interactive and eective learning


experience in the elds of science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM). When we write about the chemistry
apps, newer and more powerful apps are still being developed
and updated by chemists and engineers around the world to
solve specic problems. With the rapid evolution of chemistry
apps, it is nearly impossible to cover all high-quality chemistry
apps in one review. This review will hopefully introduce the
versatile functionality and power of mobility from chemistry
apps and get readers started on the journey of exploration.

name on both iOS and Android, which is a front-line helper for


biochemists and molecular biologists. It comes with handy
protocols, biomath calculators, and multimedia training tools
that facilitates laboratory tasks and technical learning eorts in
biochemical research laboratories. Apps such as Buer Calc
(iOS, by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.) provide similar capabilities.
An app that is similar in specicity is the Buer Calc for iOS,
a handy tool for chemists or biochemists who routinely make
buer solutions. This particular app provides a list of buers to
choose from, and a list of parameters that can be changed, such
as concentration and volume. Green Solvent (iOS, by
Molecular Materials Informatics, Inc., Figure 7) has a variety

ASSOCIATED CONTENT

* Supporting Information
S

Supplemental tables comparing app functions within specic


categories, along with a Web link to an updated review of latest
chemistry apps in a tabular format. This material is available via
the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Author

*E-mail:ling.huang@hofstra.edu.
Notes

The authors declare no competing nancial interest.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank all app developers for their
permission to let us publish the app icons and screenshots.
Many of them also provided helpful feedback and comments.
We would also like to acknowledge Alan J. Dans from Hofstra
University for his artistic and graphic design of Figure 1 and the
abstract gure.

Figure 7. Screen view of the Green Solvents app. Image reproduced


with permission from Molecular Materials Informatics, Inc.

of solvents grouped by their functional groups. It provides the


solvents safety ratings and links to several mobile structure
search apps so users can make a conscious selection of solvent
when presented with multiple options. For example, when
either methanol or acetonitrile can be used as eective mobile
phase for HPLC separation, Green Solvent app can be used
to pick the greener one. Greener solvents can also be selected
for sample extraction and glassware rinsing.
Convert Pad (Android, by Sunny Moon) can convert a lot
of units and properties in physical chemistry, besides its other
conversion abilities. This tool can be used in physical chemistry
labs for quick calculations. W. Chemistry Handbook also
contains properties and calculators important for solution
chemistry, which becomes a indispensable tool for lab chemists
and students in general, biochemistry, and organic labs.

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CONCLUSIONS
The availability of Chemistry apps on smartphones and other
portable electronic devices aords chemistry students and
chemical professionals powerful and compact tools to solve
problems conveniently with reduced burden from conventional
media, heavy books, and bulky computers. The increasing
adoption of smartphones is helped by dropping prices and ease
of use. The increasing number of high-quality chemistry related
apps transforms the landscape of chemistry teaching and
learning. Chemistry on the go, in the eld, and virtually in
your hands is being realized inexpensively and becoming an
irresistible trend in chemical education. The hand-held software
tools and more powerful computing power in smartphones are
also being applied to facilitate active learning and research
eorts in chemistry laboratories. The apps along with the
multimedia features introduced in this review will potentially
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