Asphyxiant gas can smell the odorants, and assigning a different smell to each gas may be impractical. Another difficulty is that most odorants (e.g., the thiols) are chemically reactive. This is not a problem with natural gas intended to be burned as fuel, which is routinely odorized, but a major use of asphyxiants such as nitrogen, helium, argon and krypton is to protect reactive materials from the atmosphere. The dangers of excess concentrations of nontoxic gases has been recognized for centuries within the mining industry. The concept of black damp (or "stythe") reflects an understanding that certain gaseous mixtures could lead to
Natural gas in the United States sold to refineries the same as oil. The C2 through C5 hydrocarbons (ethane, propane, butane, and pentane) are known as natural gas liquids (NGLs), and remain in gaseous form until they are extracted at a gas processing plant. The division between the two classes is not perfect: some hexane, and heptane remain in the gas to be separated out as NGLs, while some butane and pentane, may separate out with the condensate. Natural gas which contains NGLs is called "wet gas." Gas which naturally contains no NGLs, or gas from which the NGLs have been removed, is called "dry gas."