Potassium Potassium Potassium is a chemical element with symbol K (from Neo-Latin "kalium") and atomic number 19. It was first isolated from potash, the ashes of plants, from which its name derives. In the periodic table, potassium is one of the alkali metals. All of the alkali metals have a single valence electron in the outer electron shell, which is easily removed to create an ion with a positive charge – a cation, which combines with anions to form salts. Potassium in nature occurs only in ionic salts. Elemental potassium is a soft silvery-white alkali metal that oxidizes rapidly in air
Standard atomic weight publishes "abridged" values (up to five digits per number only), and for the twelve interval values, "conventional" values (single number values). Symbol "A" is a relative atomic mass, for example from a specific sample. To be specific, the standard atomic weight can be noted as , where (E) is the element symbol. The abridged atomic weight, also published by CIAAW, is derived from the standard atomic weight reducing the numbers to five digits (five significant figures). The name does not say 'rounded'. Interval borders are rounded "downwards" for the first (lowmost) border, and "upwards" for the "upward" (upmost) border. This