Molecular imprinting is a promising technology in the preparation of highly selective materials. Molecularly-imprinted polymers (MIPs) are comparable to enzymes in the selectivity towards target molecules, and can be used to catalyze chiral-selective, stereo-selective and regio-selective reactions, MIPs are now regarded as a novel molecular reaction vessels. MIPs show outstanding chemical and physical stability, thus can be used under harsh chemical environments instead of enzymes. In this review, utilization of MIPs as enzyme mimics to catalyze synthetic reactions, and as molecular reaction vessels were summarized.

Key words: molecularly imprinting, enzyme mimics, polymeric catalyst, molecular reaction vessel