Molecularly imprinted polymers by the surface imprinting technique

Molecular imprinting technology (MIT) aims to prepare polymers with tailor-made binding sites for the templates in shape, size and functional groups. However, many disadvantages of traditional MIT lead to some unsatisfactory results. Recently, surface molecular imprinting technique (SMIT) has aroused extensive attention and been applied in many fields, such as sensors, separation and purification, catalysis and biomedical areas owing to the desired selectivity, reduction of “embedding” phenomenon, fast mass transfer rate and binding kinetics. With the rapid development of SMIT, it faces a number of challenges, involving pure templates obtained, the higher cost of using noble metals, unclear recognition mechanism, low solubility of the templates in solvents, etc., which limit its practical applications in various aspects. This paper briefly reviews current status of the SMIT, particularly emphasis on the preparation of surface molecularly imprinted polymers (SMIPs, including interactions between templates and monomers, solid matrixes and synthetic strategies) and significant applications on sensors, separation and purification, catalysis and biomedical areas. Furthermore, some still existing challenges and future prospects in this research area are also highlighted.