Technique overview & how it works: Distillation removes a volatile solvent from a nonvolatile product, separates a volatile product from nonvolatile impurities, or separates two or more volatile products that have sufficiently different boiling points.There are two types of distillation, fractional and simple, In fractional, the apparatus contains a column that is packed with glass beads or metal turnings. In simple distillation the liquids are separated in one vaporization step. In distillation, a liquid mixture is heated, and the vapors in the flask rise up the fractionating column and fall back into the flask when they hit the packing material in the column. After this, the liquid is reheated by the vapors and vaporized again. Once the condensation-vaporization is repeated enough times, the vapors of the more volatiles compound reach the top of the fractionating column, they move into the distillation head where they are condensed and collected a s a liquid in a flask.