Potassium bicarbonate dry chemical fire extinguishers, as the principal component of the Purple-K dry chemical, and in some applications of condensed aerosol fire suppression. It is the only dry chemical fire suppression agent recognized by the U.S. National Fire Protection Association for firefighting at airport crash rescue sites. It is about twice as effective in fire suppression as sodium bicarbonate. Potassium bicarbonate is an effective fungicide against powdery mildew and apple scab, allowed for use in organic farming. Potassium bicarbonate has widespread use in crops, especially for neutralizing acidic soil. The word "saleratus", from Latin "sal æratus" meaning "aerated salt", was widely
Chemical element meaning "no life") for "nitrogen". For purposes of international communication and trade, the official names of the chemical elements both ancient and more recently recognized are decided by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), which has decided on a sort of international English language, drawing on traditional English names even when an element's chemical symbol is based on a Latin or other traditional word, for example adopting "gold" rather than "aurum" as the name for the 79th element (Au). IUPAC prefers the British spellings "aluminium" and "caesium" over the U.S. spellings "aluminum" and "cesium", and the U.S.