Research and Application of Highly Selective Molecular Imprinting Technology in Chiral Separation Analysis

Since residual chiral pollutants in the environment and toxic or ineffective chiral components in drugs can threat human health, there is an urgent need for methods to separation and analyze chiral molecules. Molecular imprinting technology (MIT) is a biomimetic technique for specific recognition of analytes with high potential for application in the field of chiral separation and analysis. However, since MIT has some disadvantages when used for chiral recognition, such as poor rigidity of imprinted materials, a single type of recognition site, and poor stereoselectivity, reducing the interference of conformationally and structurally similar substances to increase the efficiency of chiral recognition is difficult. Therefore, improving the rigidity of imprinted materials, increasing the types of imprinted cavity recognition sites, and constructing an imprinted microenvironment for highly selective chiral recognition are necessary for the accurate identification of chiral substances. In this article, the principle of chiral imprinting recognition is introduced, and various strategies that improve the selectivity of chiral imprinting, using derivative functional monomers, supramolecular compounds, chiral assembly materials, and biomolecules, are reviewed in the past 10 years.