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 bifluoride it to generate, for the first time, hydrogen fluoride. Potassium bifluoride is prepared by treating potassium carbonate or potassium hydroxide with hydrofluoric acid: The electrolysis of KHF was used by Henri Moissan to isolate the element fluorine in 1886. A related material containing two equivalents of HF is also known, KHF (CAS#12178-06-2, m.p. 71.7 C). The industrial production of fluorine entails the electrolysis of molten KHF. Potassium bifluoride Potassium bifluoride is the inorganic compound with the formula KHF. This colourless salt consists of the potassium cation and the bifluoride (HF) anion. The salt is used in etchant for glass. Sodium