Naviglio Extractor®: extracts from medicinal plants to produce supplements and beverages in short times (2-24 hours). Presentation of a new bitter: “Amaro delle Donne”

The current industrial production of most extracts from medicinal plants is mainly based on traditional extraction techniques such as infusion, also improperly called “maceration”, squeezing and percolation; these methods, although economical and simple to apply, have numerous limitations. Among these, the best known is the long extraction time needed to obtain the final product that can cause the degradation of the matrices due to the long contact between the solvent and the solid [ 1 ]. The aim of this study is to summarize the last twenty-five years of development of an innovative solid-liquid extraction technique: the Rapid Solid-Liquid Dynamic Extraction (RSLDE), which uses the associated machinery, the Naviglio Extractor ®​ (Atlas Filtri s.r.l., Padua, Italy) and to show its application in the production of extracts from different plant matrices in a shorter time than traditional methods, maintaining high quality standards and high yields in the beneficial compounds present in numerous medicinal plants [ 2 ] [ 3 ]. The most notable examples are the production of elixirs, which normally require up to 40 days of maceration, in just 24 hours of extraction [ 4 ] and the production of the traditional Neapolitan lemon liqueur called “Limoncello” in only 2 hours, as an alternative to the common 7-21 days of maceration required [ 5 ], showing the potential of this technique to revolutionize the extraction industry. Furthermore, the versatility of this technique allows its application to a multitude of plants listed in the International Pharmacopoeia, reducing the range of extraction times from 21 days to 2-24 hours ([ Fig. 1 ]). Fig. 1 Applications of Naviglio Extractor® Publication History Article published online: 05 March 2026 © 2026. Thieme. All rights reserved. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Oswald-Hesse-Straße 50, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany