Molecular imprinting polymers and their composites: a promising material for diverse applications

Molecular imprinted polymerization is considered one of the most useful preparation strategies to obtain highly selective polymeric materials called molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs). It has attracted a tremendous amount of interest in the last decade. Consequently, MIPs have been employed in a variety of applications including chromatographic separation, sensors and biosensors fabrication, drug delivery, proteomic analysis and plastic antibody synthesis, etc. The hybridization of the excellent features of MIPs and nanomaterials has further fueled the intensity of research in this area. A good number of works have been reported on MIP-nanomaterial composites in last few years covering all types of applications. In this review, we discuss the basic fundamentals of MIPs, nanomaterials and their combined applications. As a proof of concept, we included selective works published from 2012 to 2016.