Inorganic matrices molecularly imprinted

Sasaki, D.Y. In Molecular Imprinting Approaches Using Inorganic Matrices. Molecularly Imprinted Polymers Man-Made Mimics of Antibodies and Their Applications in Analytical Chemistry. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 2001. 

There are two methods to prepare a cavity with a shape similar to a template molecule-by-molecular imprinting, as illustrated in Fig. 22.2a. Organic or inorganic polymer matrices are synthesized around the template molecule to form a conformal structure around the template. The template molecule is removed from the polymer matrix, resulting in the transfer of the shape of the template molecule in the polymer matrix, which then acts as a selective adsorption site for molecules with a shape similar to the template. 

Surface molecular imprinting provides the following three advantages for the design of selective catalysts (1) the formation of unsaturated active metal sites, (2) the formation of a shape-selective reaction space around the active metal center, and (3) high durability (and therefore recyclability) of the unsaturated metal center due to its protection by inorganic matrix overlayers. 

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