Research progress and perspectives in field‐induced imprinted polymers

Abstract In the process of preparation of imprinted polymers, the introduction of external fields, such as magnetic field, microwave field, ultrasonic field, electric field and high‐energy radiation field, to improve the structure and performance of imprinted polymers has become a novel direction of the development of imprinted polymers, and relevant reports have been increasing in recent years. However, the progress of research on field‐induced imprinted polymers has not been summarized and noticed, resulting in few perspective on the shortcomings and future development of the field‐induced effect which in turn has hindered its further study. Considering this, we firstly introduced the development history and mechanism of imprinted polymers. Then, the field‐induced effects on the mechanism of polymerization and the structure and performances of imprinted polymers were summarized in the order of magnetic field‐induced imprinted polymers, microwave field‐induced imprinted polymers, ultrasonic field‐induced imprinted polymers, electric field‐induced imprinted polymers and high‐energy radiation field‐induced polymers. Significantly, the challenges to the development of field‐induced imprinted polymers were presented, and the development trends of field‐induced imprinted polymers were proposed with the aim to build the bridge for future FI‐IPs research and shed the light on the application research of the field‐induced imprinted polymers.