What is the difference between simple and fractional distillation?

Simple distillation is to separate liquids with a big difference in boiling points. For example, pure water from salty water. Fractional distillation is for liquids with boiling points that are very close. For this, you use a special tube called a fractionating column. This tube has many surfaces inside, like glass beads. This helps separate the liquids much better. It is like doing many little distillations at one time. So fractional distillation is more precise for difficult mixtures.