Fractionation

noun

1. Chemical separation by successive operations, each removing from a liquid some proportion of one of the substances. The operation may be one of precipitation, or more familiarly of distillation.
2. the act or process of separating a mixture into portions of different composition, as in distillation or fractional crystallization.
3. Separation of crude oil into components of differing composition by fractional distillation.
4. A separation process in which a certain quantity of a mixture is divided up into smaller quantities (fractions) in which the composition changes according to a gradient.
5. a process that uses heat to separate a substance into its components