Potassium tree leaves, adding water, heating, and evaporating the solution. When Humphry Davy first isolated the pure element using electrolysis in 1807, he named it "potassium", which he derived from the word potash. The symbol "K" stems from "kali", itself from the root word "alkali", which in turn comes from "" "al-qalyah" "plant ashes." In 1797, the German chemist Martin Klaproth discovered "potash" in the minerals leucite and lepidolite, and realized that "potash" was not a product of plant growth but actually contained a new element, which he proposed to call "kali". In 1807, Humphry Davy produced the element via electrolysis:
Potassium ethyl xanthate as the anhydrous salt and is nonhygroscopic. Potassium ethyl xanthate is used in the mining industry as flotation agent for extraction of the ores of copper, nickel, and silver. The method exploits the affinity of these "soft" metals for the organosulfur ligand. Potassium xanthate is a useful reagent for preparing xanthate esters from alkyl and aryl halides. The resulting xanthate estes are useful intermediates in organic synthesis. The LD50 is 683 mg/kg (oral, rats) for potassium ethyl xanthate. Potassium ethyl xanthate Potassium ethyl xanthate (KEX) is an organosulfur compound with the chemical formula CHCHOCSK. It is a pale yellow powder