Chitosan in Molecularly-Imprinted Polymers: Current and Future Prospects

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Long Xu¹  Yun-An Huang¹  Qiu-Jin Zhu¹  Chun Ye¹ 

[1] School of Liquor & Food Engineering, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China; E-Mails:

关键词: chitosan;    molecularly imprinted polymers;    cross-linkers;    aldehydes;    heterocyclic compounds;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms160818328

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Chitosan is widely used in molecular imprinting technology (MIT) as a functional monomer or supporting matrix because of its low cost and high contents of amino and hydroxyl functional groups. The various excellent properties of chitosan, which include nontoxicity, biodegradability, biocompatibility, and attractive physical and mechanical performances, make chitosan a promising alternative to conventional functional monomers. Recently, chitosan molecularly-imprinted polymers have gained considerable attention and showed significant potential in many fields, such as curbing environmental pollution, medicine, protein separation and identification, and chiral-compound separation. These extensive applications are due to the polymers’ desired selectivity, physical robustness, and thermal stability, as well as their low cost and easy preparation. Cross-linkers, which fix the functional groups of chitosan around imprinted molecules, play an important role in chitosan molecularly-imprinted polymers. This review summarizes the important cross-linkers of chitosan molecularly-imprinted polymers and illustrates the cross-linking mechanism of chitosan and cross-linkers based on the two glucosamine units. Finally, some significant attempts to further develop the application of chitosan in MIT are proposed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.