Potassium lid of the container, and can detonate upon opening. Because of the highly reactive nature of potassium metal, it must be handled with great care, with full skin and eye protection and preferably an explosion-resistant barrier between the user and the metal. Ingestion of large amounts of potassium compounds can lead to hyperkalemia, strongly influencing the cardiovascular system. Potassium chloride is used in the United States for lethal injection executions. 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
Group 12 element It was then officially named by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) after Nicolaus Copernicus on February 19, 2010, the 537th anniversary of Copernicus' birth. Like in most other d-block groups, the abundance in Earth's crust of group 12 elements decreases with higher atomic number. Zinc is with 65 parts per million (ppm) the most abundant in the group while cadmium with 0.1 ppm and mercury with 0.08 ppm are orders of magnitude less abundant. Copernicium, as a synthetic element with a half-life of a few minutes, may only be present in the laboratories where it was