Abstract: The principles of chemical equilibrium were used to derive a new set of formulae representing the oxygen potentials for five buffer gas mixtures at normal pressure.Various sorts of classical formulae for them are on- ly a particular representation under ignoring the effects of oxygen,thereby being unavailable for accurate cal- culation of oxygen potentials.In this paper,the oxygen potentials set by CO_2-H_2 gas mixtures and the mis- takes and errors of the classical expressions for them were discussed emphatically.The deviation in partial pressures of oxygen in some of previous experiments under the oxygen potentials controlled by CO_2-H_2 gas mixtures was explained quantitatively.The oxygen-potential diagrams predicting the equilibrated gas com- positions from the initial conditions have been also given.

Key words: oxygen potential, oxygen-potential diagram, buffer gas, gas equilibration