Since the concept of solvent impregnated resins was introduced in the early 1980s, the technique has been applied to a limited amount of applications. The main disadvantage of the resins was that the amount of solvent inside was limited to approximately 1.5 ml/g polymer. A new generation of solvent impregnated resins is introduced. These capsules can contain up to 11.8 ml solvent/g polymer and were prepared using a modified dry impregnation technique. Due to the high solvent loading, the capacity per volume of capsule for extracting products from aqueous phases is therefore dramatically increased. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.