Potassium is a soft metal that can easily be cut with a knife. It’s very reactive, and causes an explosion when mixed with water! It’s silvery-white in colour, but quickly turns grey when it touches oxygen in the air. To stop this, the metal is stored in oil which stops it reacting with air. You can’t go looking for potassium metal like gold prospectors did during the gold rush. This is because pure potassium metal doesn’t occur naturally in nature because it reacts straightaway with water to form a different compound. When experiments are done with potassium, you have to protect your skin and eyes because the reactions are explosive. When potassium reacts with water lots of heat is given off, which ignites hydrogen to produce a bright lilac flame. Because of this it’s also used to make fireworks and matches. Potassium is very similar to sodium, and scientists didn’t … Continue reading Potassium