An Overview of Microfluidic-Assisted Strategies for Synthesis and Applications of Molecularly Imprinted Polymers

This review gives an overview of using microfluidics in conjunction with molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP), which covers two aspects: on the one hand, on-chip synthesis of polymer and MIP particles on the nano and the micro scale. This comprises both approaches using two different immiscible solvents and homogeneous matrices to obtain the desired particle morphologies. On the other hand, especially paper-based microfluidic systems have attracted increasing interest as low-cost analytical tools that are inherently useful for applying at the point of care. By now, there have been several successful attempts to combine them with MIP (instead of biological recognition systems) and to successfully apply them in environmental samples, food matrices, and for diagnostic applications.