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
Group 3 element 3 element. Calculations suggest that unpentpentium (Upp, element 155) could also be the next group 3 element. If lanthanum and actinium are considered group 3 elements, then element 121, unbiunium (Ubu), should be the fifth group 3 element. The element is calculated have electronic configuration of [Og]8s8p, which is not associated with transition metals, without having a partially filled d-subshell. No experiments have been performed to create unpenttrium, unbiunium or any element that could be considered the next group 3 element; however, unbiunium is the element with the lowest atomic number that has not been tried to be created and