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In this article, starting from a new solid–liquid extractive principle an innovative solid–liquid extractor is showed. Extractor Naviglio® works at room temperature and it does not need to heat the extractive system; this fact is important in the field of officinal plants and in many other cases when the objective of the extraction are the active principles or compounds sensible to the temperature. Experimental trials have demonstrated that two hours are sufficient to extract the more common plants like wild camomile, calendula, peppermint, tea, etc.; while more time for complete extraction of roots or cortex is requested. Extractor Naviglio® changes the philosophy of solid–liquid extraction because it does not work on diffusion and osmosis principle like the major part of actual solid–liquid extraction techniques but it works on a new extractive principle: Naviglio's Principle, based on generating of a gradient pressure between the inner and the outlet of solid matrix.

The nicotine content of the tobacco powder completely degrades in one week when it is added to a non manured soil. If some organic manure is added to the soil so as to sensibly increase the microbial flora, then nicotine degrades in less than twenty-four hours. In sterilized soil nicotine content is constant over the time because of the total absence of microorganism. In the determination of the nicotine in the soil, accurate analytical results can be obtained by adding methanol to the soil sample at the moment of the sampling. Methanol degrades the enzymatic systems causing a soil sterilization and avoids, therefore, the degradation of the alkaloid. The extracted nicotine is analyzed by means of high performance liquid chromatography in a rapid and accurate manner.

The interference of triglycerides in the analysis of sterols and their esters in fats can be eliminated by transesterification of the sample dissolved in n-hexane with a solution of sodium hydroxide 2 mol/L. Since the analytes are distributed equally in n-hexane and in methanol, better results can be obtained by accurate measurements of the volumes, and processing the standards as the samples. Triglycerides and steryl esters are transesterified quantitatively by a solution of sodium hydroxide 2 mol/L using diethyl ether as solvent. At 40°C, ten minutes are sufficient to complete the reaction. The sterols are determined in fats using a mass spectrometer detector, at concentrations as low as 5 mg/Kg. Using FID, it was possible to analyze sterols present in concentrations higher than 100 mg/Kg.