Advanced polymeric materials: Synthesis and analytical application of ion imprinted polymers as selective sorbents for solid phase extraction of metal ions

• Industries release large quantities of metal ions in the course of manufacturing processes.
• Ion imprinted polymer (IIP) is a potent tool to sensitively detect metal ions in various media.
• For ion imprinting, polymers are synthesized based on ligand structures to surround ions.
• In this process, certain ligands can be used to form complexes with specific (metal) ions.
• The concept of IIPs is reviewed to cover their theory, synthesis, and analytical application.

Over the past several decades, much progress has been made in the development of ion-imprinted polymers (IIPs) with the aid of novel types of tailored polymeric materials (e.g., nanomaterials and hybrid materials). Because of such efforts, IIPs are now widely employed as advanced analytical tools in a variety of sectors (e.g., as sorbents for solid phase extraction of metal ions). Recently, due to the advancement of polymeric materials (PMs), an increased number of studies have been made to expand the practical applicability of IIPs. In this review, the basic theories involved in the polymerization methods of IIPs are described along with their synthesis and diverse fields of applications (e.g., solid phase extraction (SPE), sensors, and membrane separators).