Potassium in 1809, Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert proposed the name "Kalium" for Davy's "potassium". In 1814, the Swedish chemist Berzelius advocated the name "kalium" for potassium, with the chemical symbol "K". The English and French speaking countries adopted Davy and Gay-Lussac/Thénard's name Potassium, while the Germanic countries adopted Gilbert/Klaproth's name Kalium. The "Gold Book" of the International Union of Physical and Applied Chemistry has designated the official chemical symbol as K. Potassium is the second least dense metal after lithium. It is a soft solid with a low melting point, and can be easily cut with a knife. Freshly cut potassium is
Potassium tert-butoxide Potassium tert-butoxide Potassium "tert"-butoxide is the chemical compound with the formula K(CH)CO. This colourless solid is a strong base (pKa of conjugate acid around 17), which is useful in organic synthesis. It exists as a tetrameric cubane-type cluster. It is often seen written in chemical literature as potassium "t"-butoxide. The compound is often depicted as a salt, and it often behaves as such, but it is not ionized in solution. Potassium "t"-butoxide is commercially available as a solution and as a solid, but it is often generated "in situ" for laboratory use because samples are so sensitive and older samples