Potassium is the abundant metal of all present on Earth
. The word K is used for its chemical symbol. It is an ionic salt found in seawater and is part of many minerals. Potassium is essential for plants and animals. However, it is highly reactive in nature and does not exist in pure elemental form.
Potassium was used in a form of potash before the 18th century. It was used for cleaning. Potash is made from ashes of wood and water. Potash dissolves in water and collected in large pots and then evaporated. The residual white substance was potash. The name potash originated from pots that were used in the making process and the residue scraped from them. It was also called vegetable alkali.
Potash is an effective plant fertilizer because it is rich in vital plant nutrients. Potash is also used in making soap, dyes and glass.
The name Potash was often mixed with a similar cleaning agent known as mineral alkali. The reason was that they had same qualities and were used in a same way. Their sources were only different.
Chemists had noticed by the end of 18th century that mineral alkali and vegetable alkali contain same elements which were not earlier identified. They tried several methods to isolate these elements from compounds.
A British chemist named Humphry Davy worked on separating the chemical elements in 1807. He passed electric current through the solution of potash and soda ash. There was no result easily seen as these elements quickly reacted with water. He excluded water from his experiments. He passed electric current through the solution of potash and little drops of the metal emerged. This new metal was named potassium after potash.
People had earlier used cut down trees and made potash from their ash. Potassium is now produced only through thermal methods or electrolysis. The source metals come from abundant metal deposits found in lakes and sea beds.
Potash is mined from Germany, Canada and three states of US namely New Mexico, California and Utah. However potassium is extremely reactive in its pure form.
Potassium is an essential nutrient for human body and is regularly used in making fertilizers, soaps, medicines, glass, fireworks and explosives.