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
Atomic mass in 12 grams of the carbon isotope C-12. The number of atoms in a mole is called Avogadro's number, the value of which is approximately 6.022 × 10. One mole of a substance always contains almost exactly the "standard atomic weight" or "molar mass" of that substance; however, this may or may not be true for the "atomic mass," depending on whether or not the element exists naturally in more than one isotope. For example, the standard atomic weight of iron is 55.847 g/mol, and therefore one mole of iron as commonly found on earth has a mass of 55.847