Who in 1807 & 1808 was the first to discover and isolate the metals sodium, potassium and calcium?
Potassium metal can be isolated by electrolysis of its hydroxide in a process that has changed little since it was first used by Humphry Davy in 1807. Although the electrolysis process was developed and used in industrial scale in the 1920s, the thermal method by reacting sodium with potassium chloride in a chemical equilibrium reaction became the dominant method in the 1950s. The production of sodium potassium alloys is accomplished by changing the reaction time and the amount of sodium used in the reaction. The Griesheimer process employing the reaction of potassium fluoride with calcium carbide was also used to produce
Sodium-potassium alloy In this continuous process, a distillation column is fed with potassium chloride and sodium. In the reaction zone, potassium chloride reacts with sodium to form sodium chloride and potassium. The lighter-boiling potassium is enriched in an upper fractionating zone and drawn at the column head while molten sodium chloride is withdrawn from the bottom. Sodium-potassium alloy Sodium-potassium alloy, colloquially called NaK (commonly pronounced ), is an alloy of two alkali metals, sodium (Na, atomic number 11) and potassium (K, atomic number 19), and which is usually liquid at room temperature. Various commercial grades are available. NaK is highly reactive with