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
Synthetic element used for many existing synthetic elements, while the name "rutherfordium" (chosen by the American team) was accepted for element 104. Meanwhile, the American team had discovered seaborgium, and the next six elements had been discovered by a German team: bohrium, hassium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, roentgenium, and copernicium. Element 113, nihonium, was discovered by a Japanese team; the last five known elements, flerovium, moscovium, livermorium, tennessine, and oganesson, were discovered by Russian–American collaborations and complete the seventh row of the periodic table. No element with an atomic number greater than 99 has any use outside of scientific research, as they have extremely