Recent advances in materials modification of MOF/COF-based molecularly imprinted electrochemical sensors

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that combining metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) or covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with secondary functional materials preserves the advantages of high specific surface area of MOFs/COFs and selective recognition of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to significantly enhance the sensitivity, selectivity and stability of molecularly imprinted electrochemical sensors (MIECSs). This strategy effectively addresses key limitations of traditional MIPs in terms of difficult template elution and low mass transfer efficiency, while also overcoming the poor electrical conductivity and weak aqueous stability of MOFs/COFs. These improvements broaden the potential for applications of MIECSs in various fields such as biomedicine and environmental monitoring. This review briefly introduces MIPs, MOFs, and COFs and discusses the mechanisms by which they influence each other. Additionally, this review systematically examines the research progress of MIECSs based on MOF/COF composite systems over the past three years, analyzes existing problems, and outlines future development directions, aiming to provide a valuable reference for the design of high-performance sensors.