Applications of molecularly imprinted polymers

Artificial molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) gained more reputation in biotechnology as promising alternatives to the natural receptors. This behavior is the consequence of cavities that has a close agreement with target compounds in the polymer matrix and as expected the subsequent removal of template compounds via washing leads to appearance of predesigned channel for target species. They exhibit desired affinity and recognition power toward the analyte in comparison to other compounds, which subsequently is a key point that encourages their application in various fields. The challenge of using MIPs as synthetic receptors lies in their high sensitivity and selectivity along with their stability and acceptable cost. MIP-based material has advanced greatly in analytical chemistry and a wide-range of applications and bioanalytical fields including sample pretreatment, chromatography, environmental pollutant detection, drug delivery systems and sensors, etc., while extensive usages are attributed to chromatography and sample pretreatment. This chapter describes the applications of MIPs and highlights the MIP-based development in separation methods.