Recent advances in the synthesis of and sensing applications for metal-organic framework-molecularly imprinted polymer (MOF-MIP) composites

Molecular imprinting technology is used for producing molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). These MIPs have tailor-made binding sites for target template molecules. Recently, MIPs have been employed in a wide range of analytical fields because of their high specificity and sensitivity for their target molecules (e.g., drugs, foods, and pesticides). MIPs combined with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can enhance accessibility to the imprinting sites, as such combination can offer many beneficial properties (e.g., mechanical strength and high specific surface area). As such, MOF-MIPs with enhanced sensing properties have been fabricated for the detection of various targets (e.g., pesticides, mycotoxins, and proteins). In this review, the recent advances in hybrid MOF-MIP technology are discussed in association with combined strategies for their synthesis and sensing applications. The performance of diverse MOF-MIPs is also evaluated in terms of the available sensing principles (e.g., electrochemical and fluorescent sensing). The constructed MOF-MIP-based sensors are found to have good performance toward various types of targets (e.g., high sensitivity and selectivity). At last, the present challenges in the MOF-MIP-based sensing applications are discussed along with the future prospects for this research field.