Buffer gas Buffer gas A buffer gas is an inert or nonflammable gas. In the Earth's atmosphere, nitrogen acts as a buffer gas. A buffer gas adds pressure to a system and controls the speed of combustion with any oxygen present. Any inert gas such as helium, neon, or argon will serve as a buffer gas. Buffer gases are commonly used in many applications from high pressure discharge lamps to reduce line width of microwave transitions in alkali atoms. A buffer gas usually consists of atomically inert gases such as helium, argon, and nitrogen which are the primary gases used. Krypton, neon,
Atmosphere of Uranus from the analysis of "Voyager 2" far infrared and radio occultation observations. The currently accepted value is in the upper troposphere, which corresponds to a mass fraction . This value is very close to the protosolar helium mass fraction of , indicating that helium has not settled towards the centre of the planet as it has in the gas giants. The third most abundant constituent of the Uranian atmosphere is methane , the presence of which has been known for some time as a result of the ground-based spectroscopic observations. Methane possesses prominent absorption bands in the visible and near-infrared,