Experimental values for the solubility of carbon dioxide, ethane, methane, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, argon and carbon monoxide in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, [bmim][BF4] - a room temperature ionic liquid - are reported as a function of temperature between 283 K and 343 K and at pressures close to atmospheric. Carbon dioxide is the most soluble gas with mole fraction solubilities of the order of 10(-2). Ethane and methane are one order of magnitude more soluble than the other five gases that have mole fraction solubilities of the order of 10(-4). Hydrogen is the less soluble of the gaseous solutes studied. From the variation of solubility, expressed as Henry's law constants, with temperature, the partial molar thermodynamic functions of solvation such as the standard Gibbs energy, the enthalpy, and the entropy are calculated. The precision of the experimental data, considered as the average absolute deviation of the Henry's law constants from appropriate smoothing equations is of 1%. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.