Imprinting Cavities Research Articles

Chiral drug fluorometry based on a calix[6]arene/molecularly imprinted polymer double recognition element grafted on nano-C-dots/Ir/Au.

A luminescent double recognition nanoprobe is described as a new strategy for the selective determination of chiral molecules. C-dots/Ir/Au fluorescent nanoparticles, synthesised under hydrothermal conditions, are used as a high-performance probe in combination with a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) and calix[6]arene as a double recognition element. Thiolated calix[6]arene is grafted on C-dots/Ir/Au as the first recognition element, which then forms a host-guest complex with the target molecule levodopa (L-DOPA). Subsequently, an MIP is prepared on the C-dots/Ir/Au (MIP/C-dots/Ir/Au) by chemical polymerisation. After the removal of L-DOPA, double recognition imprinting cavities are formed. The fluorescence intensity at 478nm of the nanoprobe is effectively quenched by adsorption of L-DOPA on MIP/C-dots/Ir/Au, which provides a method for L-DOPA determination. Owing to the double recognition strategy, this method has excellent selectivity which can effectively avoid interference from enantiomer D-DOPA, and a imprinting factor of 7.1 is obtained for L-DOPA. This accurate and reliable method, with a wide linear range (5 × 10-10 to 1.2 × 10-7molL-1) and a low limit of detection (1.45 × 10-10molL-1), was successfully applied to the determination of L-DOPA in real samples, giving standard recoveries of 89.7-110.0%. Thus, the proposed sensing method provides a viable approach for the determination of a single enantiomer. Graphical abstract Schematic presentation of the MIP/C-dots/Ir/Au for L-DOPA detection. A fluorescence double chiral recognition nanoprobe is prepared of C-dots/Ir/Au nanoparticles as signal probe, and a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) and calix[6]arene as a double recognition element. Owing to the double recognition strategy, this method has strong specificity and can effectively avoid interference from enantiomers and racemates.

Improving imprinting effect by reducing sites embedding: Selective extraction of 1,2,3,4,6-penta-O-galloyl-β-d-glucose from Paeonia lactiflora Pall by hydrophilic molecularly imprinted polymers based on macromonomer and metal ion pivot

1,2,3,4,6-Penta-O-galloyl-β-d-glucose (β-PGG) is one of active component of polyphenol tannic acid in the rhizome of radix paeoniae alba, and isolating and purifying β-PGG from crude extract of Paeonia lactiflora Pall is rather challenge work. In this paper, to reduce the embedding of imprinted sites and increase the binding capacity, β-PGG imprinted monoliths were synthesized using a strategy of combination of hydrophilic macromonomer with metal ions as pivot. With a small side chain of oligoethylene glycol, oligo (ethyleneglycol) methyl ether methacrylate (OEG) was chosen as the hydrophilic macromonomer. 4-Vinylpyridine (4-VP) and ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate was used as functional monomer and crosslinker, respectively, and Ni2+ was adopted as metallic pivot. Polymerization parameters, including the ratio of functional monomer/template, ratios of 4-VP to Ni2+, and ratios of OEG to 4-VP on affinity of the resulting molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) were systematically investigated. The structure and morphology of the obtained monolithic MIP was studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy and multipoint BET measurement. The greatest imprinting factor can be achieved to 68, which gave rise to excellent selectivity of the resulting MIP. When using the MIP as SPE absorbent, the mean recoveries for β-PGG were 74.1% with purity of 98.35%. The results demonstrated that the combination of metal ion pivot with hydrophilic macromonomer is effective approach to the balance of rigidity of imprinting cavities and polymer flexibility and increase the selectivity of the resulting MIP.

Thiolactone-based conjugation assisted magnetic imprinted microspheres for specific capturing target proteins

Protein imprinted materials receive considerable attention in biological scope but restricted about practical utilization for the lack of adsorption efficiency and rebinding specificity. To approach the dearth, imprinted polymers or ligands capable of designable structure, herein, the facile thiolactone-based conjugates accompanied by multiple functional units, were put forward into imprinting system as protein anchors by click chemistry. Due to the simple implementation and flexible reconstitution of this conjugation strategy, a series of thiol-ene-amine segments were fabricated to capture bovine serum albumin (BSA) for generating imprinting cavities through dopamine self-polymerization on well-defined hollow magnetic substrates. Among them, the BSA-imprinted microspheres based on thiol-ene-MA conjugates (MA referred as 3-morpholinopropylamine) not only exhibited remarkable rebinding ability (adsorption capacity: 209.22 mg/g, imprinting factor: 4.59) and efficient saturation adsorption (30 min), but also presented satisfactory selectivity in the individual and competitive protein samples. Assisted with thiol-ene-amine conjugation, the elaborate magnetic imprinted materials for specific separating target macromolecules hold great promising in applications.

A dual-recognition molecularly imprinted electrochemiluminescence sensor based on g-C3N4 nanosheets sensitized by electrodeposited rGO-COOH for sensitive and selective detection of tyramine

In this study, a novel dual-recognition molecularly imprinted electrochemiluminescence sensor (MIECLS) was prepared for the determination of trace tyramine (Tyr) in foods for the first time. Graphitic-phase carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets (CNNS) based on reduced carboxylated graphene oxide (rGO-COOH) were introduced to an electrochemiluminescence (ECL) system. rGO-COOH not only steadily promotes the electron transport between the electrode surface and CNNS, but also has an important effect on amplifying the ECL intensity by acting as a carrier for immobilizing CNNS. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) based on o-phenylenediamine were electropolymerized on the electrode surface to form specific imprinted cavities. The quenching effect of Tyr and the addition of MIP endowed the sensor with excellent features of a high sensitivity, selectivity and stability. The proposed ECL intensity linearly declined with the increasing concentration of Tyr in a wide detection range (1 × 10−8−1 × 10−3 mol L−1) and with a low limit of detection (LOD = 1.79 nmol L−1). This MIECLS was also used to determine the Tyr content in rice vinegar, liquor and soy sauce samples, and the results correlated well with those obtained using HPLC, indicating that the developed sensor holds a broad application prospect for food safety detection.

Polydopamine-based molecular imprinted optic microfiber sensor enhanced by template-mediated molecular rearrangement for ultra-sensitive C-reactive protein detection

Conventional molecular imprinting technique is utilized for the construction of three dimensional binding cavities just providing complementary shape and size of the specific template molecule for the recognition of the same. Although molecular imprinting is able to largely improve the selectivity of detection, it lowers the limit of detection (LOD) a little. In this study, a microfiber interference sensor decorated with the polydopamine (PDA)-based molecularly imprinted with C-reactive protein (CMIP-PDA) was developed for C-reactive protein (CRP) detection, in which template molecule induced dopamine2/5,6-dihydroxyindole (DHI) trimer rearrangement in the dopamine self-polymerization process and further forms complementary hydrophobic/hydrophilic and charge distribution other than shape and size in the imprinting cavity corresponding to template. The combination of optical fiber interferometer with enhancement effect from template-mediated rearrangement remarkably boosts the recognition sensitivity. Therefore, our sensor sensitivity reaches 0.881 nm/ (lg ng/mL) and the LOD is found to be 5.813 × 10−10 ng/mL, which is about 8 orders of magnitude lower than the commercial sandwich-type ELISA kit. Moreover, the CMIP-PDA microfiber sensor has excellent repeatability and high selectivity for the target molecule. These findings confirm that the proposed PDA-based molecular imprinting can provide an ultrasensitive, rapid, low cost and label-free CRP diagnosis as well as can be varied to meet any specific biomarkers. This work also opens up new opportunity to quantitatively monitor biological molecules with extremely low concentration.

A fluorescence microplate assay based on molecularly imprinted silica coated quantum dot optosensing materials for the separation and detection of okadaic acid in shellfish.

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are attracting substantial interest as artificial plastic antibodies because of their biometric capability for targeting small molecules. In this study, molecularly imprinted silica material-coated quantum dots (MIS-QDs) with selective recognition capability to okadaic acid (OA) were developed and characterized. The synthesized MIS-QDs with specific imprinting cavities exhibited excellent recognition capability similar to those of biological antibodies and high fluorescence (FL) quenching selectivity for OA. Furthermore, the MIS-QDs with unsaturated bonds were immobilized onto the surface of 96-well microplates by cold plasma-induced grafting. A novel direct competitive microplate assay strategy was then proposed. The FL quenching properties of the developed microplate assay showed an excellent linear relationship with OA in the range of 10.0-100.0μg/kg with a correlation coefficient of 0.9961. The limit of detection for OA was 0.25μg/kg in the shellfish samples. The mean quantitative recoveries were 92.5%-101.0% and 92.9%-101.3%, with relative standard deviations of <7.7% and 7.6% for pure solvents and purified shellfish samples, respectively. The established microplate assay strategy can be used as a rapid and high-throughput method for analyzing OA marine toxins in biological samples.

Selective photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline by metal-free heterojunction surface imprinted photocatalyst based on magnetic fly ash

The metal-free heterojunction surface imprinted photocatalyst based on magnetic fly ash (PPy@g-C3N4@MFA surface imprinted photocatalyst, PGM-SIP) was synthesized by microwave polymerization and surface imprinting technique. Additionally, the polypyrrole (PPy) and g-C3N4 can form metal-free heterojunction structure. More importantly, the PGM-SIP can selectivity recognize and degrade tetracycline due to the presence of plenty of three-dimensional imprinted cavities on PGM-SIP, and the selectivity coefficient of PGM-SIP relative to g-C3N4@MFA, PPy@g-C3N4@MFA and non-imprinted photocatalyst was 1.587, 1.756 and 2.580, respectively. Therefore, this work offered an exemplary strategy for selective photodegradation of target antibiotic.

Facile Synthesis of Boronate Affinity-Based Molecularly Imprinted Monolith with Reduced Capturing pH Towards Cis-Diol-Containing Compounds

Here, we report a novel boronate affinity-based surface molecularly imprinted monolith (BA-SMIM), which was fabricated by simple two-step atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) strategy. A boronate affinity-based surface non-imprinted monolith (BA-SNIM) was prepared as control. The synthesis parameters of BA-SMIM were optimized, and the resultant BA-SMIM was characterized in detailed. In both aqueous-rich and organic-rich mobile phases, the BA-SMIM could recognize cis-diol-containing compounds mainly due to the imprinting effect. The chlorogenic acid and rosmarinic acid with two cis-diols could interact synergistically with two imprinting cavities of BA-SMIM, so they retained longer on BA-SMIM than one cis-diol-containing compounds. In addition, the capturing pH reduced from 8.6 on BA-SNIM and to 7.8 on BA-SMIM for one cis-diol-containing compounds, and from 7.4 on BA-SNIM and to 7.0 on BA-SMIM for two cis-diol-containing compounds, respectively. The reducing of capturing pH value on BA-SMIM may be attributed to the nanoconfinement effect of imprinting cavity.

Molecularly Imprinted Materials for Selective Biological Recognition.

Molecular imprinting is an approach of generating imprinting cavities in polymer structures that are compatible with the target molecules. The cavities have memory for shape and chemical recognition, similar to the recognition mechanism of antigen-antibody in organisms. Their structures are also called biomimetic receptors or synthetic receptors. Owing to the excellent selectivity and unique structural predictability of molecularly imprinted materials (MIMs), practical MIMs have become a rapidly evolving research area providing key factors for understanding separation, recognition, and regenerative properties toward biological small molecules to biomacromolecules, even cell and microorganism. In this review, the characteristics, morphologies, and applicability of currently popular carrier materials for molecular imprinting, especially the fundamental role of hydrogels, porous materials, hierarchical nanoparticles, and 2D materials in the separation and recognition of biological templates are discussed. Moreover, through a series of case studies, emphasis is given on introducing imprinting strategies for biological templates with different molecular scales. In particular, the differences and connections between small molecular imprinting (bulk imprinting, "dummy" template imprinting, etc.), large molecular imprinting (surface imprinting, interfacial imprinting, etc.), and cell imprinting strategies are demonstrated in detail. Finally, future research directions are provided.

Noble surface molecularly imprinted polymer modified titanium dioxide toward solanesol adsorption selectivity study

Abstract

Selective reduction of Cu2+ with simultaneous degradation of tetracycline by the dual channels ion imprinted POPD-CoFe2O4 heterojunction photocatalyst

The dual channels ion imprinted POPD-CoFe2O4 heterojunction photocatalyst (magnetic ion imprinted heterojunction photocatalyst) was synthesized by utilizing the microwave-assisted ion imprinting technique. The as-prepared photocatalyst can selectively reduce Cu2+ owing to abundant Cu2+ imprinted cavities existed in the imprinted layer and Cu2+ was rapidly reduced by e− in POPD, the ions selectivity coefficient (kions) of Cu2+ to other ions over magnetic ion imprinted heterojunction photocatalyst was 11.495 (kions (Cu2+/Cd2+)), 4.716 (kions (Cu2+/Fe3+)) and 15.910 (kions (Cu2+/Zn2+)), respectively, and the materials selectivity coefficient (kmaterials) of magnetic ion imprinted heterojunction photocatalyst relative to other materials was 4.998, 2.545, 10.474 and 4.918, respectively, both showed excellent selectivity. Furthermore, with the existence of mesoporous in the imprinted layer, tetracycline can easily contact with CoFe2O4 and further be degraded by h+ in CoFe2O4. Consequently, selective reduction of Cu2+ and simultaneous degradation of tetracycline can be realized via the dual channels of imprinted cavity and mesoporous. More importantly, the heterojunction structure formed between CoFe2O4 and POPD effectively separated e− and h+, which greatly promoted the photocatalytic activity of selective reduction of Cu2+ and simultaneous degradation of tetracycline. With an enhanced stability for recyling, this work provided a high-efficient and economic technical approach for selective reduction of specific heavy metal ions and simultaneous degradation of organic contaminant in complex water environment.

Palladium ion-imprinted polymers with PHEMA polymer brushes: Role of grafting polymerization degree in anti-interference

Ion-imprinted polymers (IIPs) exhibit great potential as the adsorbent for adsorption of palladium from the industrial wastewater. However, co-existence of complicated water matrixes can readily block the imprinting cavities and disturb the adsorption of target ions. Therefore, it is meaningful to endow the IIPs with an excellent anti-interference ability toward practical applications. In this work, the polymer 2-hydroxyethyl methacylate (PHEMA) polymer brushes with different polymerization degree were successfully grafted on the IIPs. The polymerization degrees of PHEMA brushes are 43, 49, 73, 122, and 294 for the IIP-1, IIP-2, IIP-3, IIP-4, and IIP-5, respectively. Batch experiments reveal that polymerization degree has an inconspicuous effect on the adsorption capacity of IIPs. And their adsorption capacities are in the range from 42 to 46 mg/g, which is much higher than most adsorbents documented in literature. The kinetic constant has increased from 0.021 to 0.042 g/(mg·min) with the increase of polymerization degree from 43 to 294, respectively. This result implies that the high-polymerization PHEMA brush can accelerate the adsorption of Pd. More importantly, the anti-interference ability of IIP-3 significantly outperforms the ungrafted IIPs; and corresponding anti-interference mechanism has been proposed. This work provides a fundamental insight into the inter-relation between polymerization degree of polymer brushes and its anti-interference ability, which may facilitate the IIPs-based technology for the adsorption and recovery of valuable metals from complex wastewater.

A Cimaterol Molecularly Imprinted Sensor Based on DNA-assisted Recognition

Abstract A novel strategy based on DNA induced conformation change was developed by rendering the imprinting cavity with refined structure in order to further improve the selectivity of molecular imprinting membrane. The double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) were first self-assembled on the surface of the gold electrode, then cimaterol (CIM) molecule, taken as the representative target, would bind with the groove of dsDNA to form complex template, together with which the molecular imprinting polymers (MIPs) was prepared by electropolymerization in the monomer solution. After the elution of CIM, the obtained MIPs sensor had a remarkably high selectivity toward CIM. The combination process of CIM and DNA was studied by UV-Vis spectroscopy and was found to follow the groove combination model. The optimal conditions of the system were optimized by electrochemical method. The results showed that the sensor had the best recognition ability toward CIM when the elution time was 35 min by ethanol-acetic acid (8:1, V/V) as an eluent and rebound time was 45 min. This sensor exhibited a linear detection range of 1.0 × 10−13−1.0 × 10−10 M with a detection limit of 3.2 × 10−14 M. The sensor was successfully applied for detection of CIM in pork samples.

A Novel Electrochemical Sensor Based on Silver Nanodendrites and Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for the Determination of Tetrabromobisphenol A in Water

AbstractA novel and facile electrochemical sensor based on three different modification layers was prepared to detect tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA). They included tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ), silver nanodendrites (AgNDs) and molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). TCNQ− acts as inducer can be reacted with Ag+ to form Ag‐TCNQ fibers and then constructed the nanodendritic structures. The latter two modification layers were synthesized on electrode by‐ways of electrodeposition and electropolymerization respectively. AgNDs has excellent conductivity and large specific surface area, which has good potential to be used as a bridge between electrode and MIPs. It can considerably improve the sensitivity of the sensor and provide immense deposit sites to pyrrole. MIPs synthesized using electropolymerization can firmly get attach on electrode, thereby, providing polymers with stable imprinted cavities and having the possibility to be reused. Under optimum conditions, the concentration of TBBPA exhibited an excellent linear relationship between 5.0×10−9 and 1.0×10−5 mol L−1, with a limit of dectection of 2.54×10−10 mol L−1 (S/N=3). The reproducibility of the sensor was observed to be 3.42 % and was immune to analogues. Finally the sensor was successfully applied to actual water samples.

Detection of hemoglobin using hybrid molecularly imprinted polymers/carbon quantum dots-based nanobiosensor prepared from surfactant-free Pickering emulsion

A simple fluorescent nanobiosensor based on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) and carbon quantum dots (CQDs) was developed for hemoglobin (Hb) detection. The nanocomposites were synthesized by a novel one-pot surfactant-free Pickering emulsion method, in which imprinted cavities complementary to Hb were formed at the surface of the particles for target recognition, while CQDs were incorporated in the core as the fluorescence probe. We innovatively used the Hb template as emulsifier to help stabilize the emulsion droplets. The method eliminated the need of surfactant, which greatly simplified Pickering emulsion synthesis procedures, and significantly enhanced the fidelity of molecular imprinting. Moreover, the method provided an easy way to integrate fluorescent probes with MIPs in a single step. The nanobiosensor was utilized for determination of Hb via fluorescence quenching, and high selectivity and sensitivity were achieved. Under the optimized conditions, a linear range of 0.77–7.7 nM and a detection limit of 0.77 nM were obtained. The resulting nanocomposites were also successfully applied to detect Hb in the serum samples, which showed good recoveries ranging from 86.8% to 93.9%.

Electrochemical preparation of surface molecularly imprinted poly(3-aminophenylboronic acid)/MWCNTs nanocomposite for sensitive sensing of epinephrine

A nanocomposite with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) coated with surface molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) poly(3-aminophenylboronic acid) (PAPBA) was successfully prepared via potentiodynamic electropolymerization and tested as an effective electrochemical material for epinephrine (EP) detection. The morphology and properties of the sensing material were characterized with scanning electron microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Compared with MWCNTs or non-imprinted polymers PAPBA modified MWCNTs electrodes, the PAPBA(MIPs)/MWCNTs modified electrode showed a lower charge transfer resistance and enhanced electrochemical performance for EP detection. The improved performance can be attributed to the large amount of specific imprinted cavities with boric acid group which can selectively adsorb EP molecule and the synergistic effect between MWCNTs and PAPBA(MIPs). The effects of pH, the molar ratio between monomer and template molecule, the cycle number of electropolymerization, and the accumulation time of the modified electrode on the sensing performance were investigated. It was found that under the optimal conditions, the PAPBA(MIPs)/MWCNTs sensor could effectively recognize EP from many possible interferents of higher concentration within a wide linear range of 0.2–800 μmol·L−1, with low detection limit of 35 nmol·L−1, high sensitivity and good discrimination. The detection of EP in human serum and real injection samples using the PAPBA(MIPs)/MWCNTs sensor also gave satisfactory results.

Molecularly imprinted polymers-based electrochemical DNA biosensor for the determination of BRCA-1 amplified by SiO2@Ag

A novel electrochemical DNA (E-DNA) biosensing strategy was designed and used for the detection of breast cancer susceptibility gene (BRCA-1). The biosensor was based on gold nanoparticles-reduced graphene oxide (AuNPs-GO) modified glass carbon electrode (GCE) covered with the layer of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) synthesized with rhodamine B (RhB) as template, methacrylic acid (MAA) as the monomer, and Nafion as additive. The signal amplification tracing tag SiO2@Ag NPs were prepared by covering AgNPs on the surface of SiO2 nanoparticles in situ, and then DNA probes were modified on AgNPs by Ag-S bond, forming the composites SiO2@Ag/DNA. In presence of target DNA (T-DNA), homogeneous hybridization was performed with SiO2@Ag/DNA and RhB labeled DNA, and the resulting SiO2@Ag/dsDNA/RhB was specifically recognized by MIPs via the interaction between imprinting cavities and RhB. Under optimal conditions, the proposed biosensor exhibited wide linear range from 10 fM to 100 nM, low detection limit of 2.53 fM (S/N = 3), excellent selectivity, reproducibility, stability, and feasibility in serum analysis. Overall, these findings suggest the promising prospects of the proposed biosensing strategy in clinical diagnostics.

Utilization of an environmentally-friendly monomer for an efficient and sustainable adrenaline imprinted electrochemical sensor using graphene

Generally, the toxic and mutagenic functional monomers are employed to synthesize the MIP films. This work demonstrates the fabrication of molecular imprinted polymer (MIP) based electrochemical sensor for adrenaline using a green functional monomer, nicotinamide. The adrenaline imprinted film was electropolymerized over reduced graphene oxide (rGO) modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) by cyclic voltammetry (CV). The as-synthesized sensors were characterized by SEM. The electrochemical analysis showed that the graphene-modified electrode exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity toward adrenaline and the over-potential of adrenaline decreased significantly as compared to bare GCE which can be attributed to graphene's unique physical and chemical properties such as subtle electronic characteristics, attractive π–π interaction, and strong adsorptive capability of MIP film. The thickness of MIP was estimated to be 1.97 nm by coulometric analysis. This electrochemical sensor displays high selectivity owing to specific imprinted cavities for adrenaline and worked well over a wide linear concertation range of adrenaline between 0.015 μM and 40 μM with a detection limit (LOD) of 3 nM. The sensor offered good reproducibility (Relative standard deviation of 3.44%) and retained 94.6% of its initial response for over 40 days. Finally, excellent recoveries from 96.0% to 100.7% were obtained for two different samples of urine and adrenaline ampoules. Thus, this work holds great promise with numerous advantages including easy fabrication, high sensitivity and selectivity, high throughput and satisfactory reproducibility for adrenaline.

Molecularly imprinted polymers fabricated via Pickering emulsions stabilized solely by food-grade casein colloidal nanoparticles for selective protein recognition.

Novel molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) based on denatured casein nanoparticle (DCP)-stabilized Pickering emulsions were developed for the first time. Casein, a phosphoprotein, is the main protein in milk. In this work, DCPs were solely used as Pickering-type interfacial emulsifiers for fabrication of MIPs for the selective recognition of proteins for the first time. DCPs were prepared by acidification and heat denaturation (at 80 °C) of casein. Their dispersions have satisfactory colloidal stability over a wide pH range. The DCPs acted as natural, food-grade, and edible interfacial emulsifiers, and adsorbed at the oil-water interface to form Pickering emulsions. After the polymerization of monomers, the template protein was removed by elution. During the elution, the interfacial DCPs were also removed, allowing more imprinted cavities to become exposed. The interfacial imprinting technology causes nearly all the imprinted sites to locate on the surface of the polymeric material. Therefore, the MIPs obtained exhibit fast rebinding and excellent specific recognition ability toward the analytes. Overall, this work provides a promising method for designing and fabricating natural-protein-based structured emulsions to prepare MIPs and thus offers new insight into protein separation and purification. Graphical Abstract Pickering emulsions stabilized by denatured casein particles.

Chiral metals as electrodes

Summary Chirality is one of the most fascinating issues in chemical researches. In this review, the development of chiral metals is summarized from the past to the present. Several very recent concepts for generating chiral metals, such as the design of chiral imprinted cavities at mesoporous metal surfaces, are also presented. The application of chiral metals as electrodes in the enantioselective recognition and asymmetric synthesis of chiral compounds reveals that these designer surfaces open up potential perspectives for the development of new materials for chiral technologies.