Potassium [SEP] discoverer or inventor
1807 by Sir Humphry Davy, who derived it from caustic potash (KOH, potassium hydroxide) by electrolysis of molten KOH with the newly discovered voltaic pile. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Later in the same year, Davy reported extraction of the metal sodium from a mineral derivative (caustic soda, NaOH, or lye) rather than a plant salt, by a similar technique, demonstrating that the elements, and thus the salts, are different. Although the production of potassium and sodium metal should
Cannizzaro reaction
The Cannizzaro reaction, named after its discoverer Stanislao Cannizzaro, is a chemical reaction that involves the base-induced disproportionation of two molecules of a non-enolizable aldehyde to give a primary alcohol and a carboxylic acid.
Cannizzaro first accomplished this transformation in 1853, when he obtained benzyl alcohol and potassium benzoate from the treatment of benzaldehyde with potash (potassium carbonate). More typically, the reaction would be conducted with sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide, giving the sodium or potassium carboxylate salt of the carboxylic-acid