Periodic Table · element
Potassium
K · Z 19
- atomic number
- 19
- atomic mass
- 39.098
- notation
- K
- group
- 1: Lithium
- period
- 4
- state0c
- Solid
- state20c
- Solid
- occurrence
- Primordial
- density
- 0.862
- melting pt
- 63.4
- boiling pt
- 759
- discovered
- 1807
- abundance
- 20900
- bio class
- Bulk
- bio role
- The dominant cation inside cells. The gradient it holds against sodium is the resting membrane potential.
- ore grade
- 170000
- ore minerals
- sylvite, carnallite; potash brines
- mined as
- Primary
extraction
Sylvite is mined a kilometre down with continuous miners in Saskatchewan and beneath Belarus and the Urals, or dissolved in place and pumped up as brine. Either way it is separated from the halite by flotation or hot-leach crystallisation and sold as potassium chloride, nearly all of it for fertiliser.
Referenced by
equation
mine
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