Physicochemical Properties of Bioactive Compounds in Ethanolic Extracts of Achillea santolina L.: A Review

Achillea santolina L is a medicinal plant adapted to arid and semi-arid environments and is distinguished by a chemically diverse secondary metabolite profile Recent research has increasingly highlighted the importance of physicochemical characterization of plant-derived bioactive compounds as a prerequisite for understanding their functional behavior Ethanolic extraction, owing to its intermediate polarity and amphiphilic nature, represents an effective approach for isolating structurally diverse polar and semi-polar constituents from A santolina This review presents a comprehensive physicochemical synthesis of current knowledge on the composition of A santolina ethanolic extracts, with a particular emphasis on flavonoids, phenolic acids, and terpenoid constituents The analysis demonstrates that molecular structure, polarity, lipophilicity, hydrogen-bonding capacity, and electronic conjugation are key determinants governing extraction efficiency, chemical stability, and molecular interactions Additionally, solvent polarity, ethanol–water ratio, and extraction parameters are shown to have a decisive influence on compound integrity and compositional balance From an analytical perspective, this review argues that many reported functional properties of A santolina extracts are more consistently interpreted through structure–property relationships rather than purely descriptive bioactivity observations Accordingly, the integration of quantitative physicochemical descriptors with advanced analytical and computational approaches is proposed as a critical step toward improving mechanistic understanding, reproducibility, and comparability in future studies of A santolina and related medicinal plants.