Distillation and evaporation are most often used to separate solutions because the particles in solutions are too small to separate by other means like filtering or your hands.
In a lab setting, distillation is particularly effective in separating liquid mixtures based on differences in boiling points, while evaporation is used to remove a solvent from a solution, leaving behind the solute. Both methods are valuable for purifying substances or recovering solvents in various chemical processes.