it is general question, the unit operation involves all types of operations carried out in chemical and process industries which do not involve any chemical reaction. Hence the chemical properties of the substance don't change however the physical properties may change. Examples are Size reduction operation Different type of separation operations and heat transfer operations
Mass transfer basically due to heat operations. Although flash distillation employs no heat transfer. In and of itself, the distillation column is considered a unit operation due to its versatility in the chemical process industry.