Recent progress on hollow porous molecular imprinted polymers as sorbents of environmental samples

Abstract

Molecular imprinting technology (MIT) offers a lock-and-key mechanism for template molecules using molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) with tailor-made binding sites. Recently, MIPs have been utilized in a wide range of applications in various fields due to their excellent recognition specificity and high sensitivity for template molecules. However, as the practical use of traditional MIPs has been limited by a number of flaws (e.g., poor site accessibility toward templates, slow mass transfer, and unsatisfactory resolution), hollow porous MIPs (HMIPs) have been proposed as an effective remedy. Herein, we reviewed the recent advances in HMIPs with respect to strategies for their fabrication and extraction application (e.g., solid phase extraction and dispersive solid phase extraction) towards sample preparation from complex environmental matrices for analytical applications. A performance analysis of diverse MIPs is presented in terms of LOD and adsorption capacity to support superiority of HMIPs in environmental analysis. The challenges and prospects of the HMIPs are also discussed for their viable applications in environmental analysis.