In the modern technological world, applications are rapidly demanding homogeneous, reproducible, scalable processes for films and catalytic surfaces. The uses of spray pyrolytic methods for fabricating these films have received attention since the late 1980s, and today spray pyrolysis finds use in a variety of applications, ranging from biomedical to industrial, microelectronics to ceramics. In this review, basic parameters of spray pyrolysis for catalytic and thin film formation are summarized, while recent developments in spray deposition for environmental remediation, photovoltaics, fuel cell and battery materials, biomedical applications, and microelectronics are also discussed. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.