Molecular imprinting of surfaces

Recent years have seen the development of a number of novel strategies for improving the performance of molecularly imprinted polymers and for adapting them to new application areas. The imprinting of surfaces has received significant attention over the past few years, due to the possibilities available in terms of the imprinting of macromolecular structures and for avoiding problems with mass transfer. Furthermore, some surface imprinting protocols offer unique possibilities for a number of application areas. In this review we present an analysis of the approaches thusfar employed for the imprinting of surfaces and discuss the consequences of these strategies for application development.