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
Period 5 element Klaproth named the new element in 1798 after the Latin word for "earth", "tellus". Gold telluride minerals (responsible for the name of Telluride, Colorado) are the most notable natural gold compounds. However, they are not a commercially significant source of tellurium itself, which is normally extracted as by-product of copper and lead production. Tellurium is commercially primarily used in alloys, foremost in steel and copper to improve machinability. Applications in solar panels and as a semiconductor material also consume a considerable fraction of tellurium production. Iodine is a chemical element with the symbol I and atomic number 53. The name