Patent ID: 7736602

Claim:
A system comprising: elemental mercury gas; an oxidizing agent gas; a chemical reaction chamber, the chemical reaction chamber including a porous, chemical reaction-enhancing medium through which to pass and react the elemental mercury gas and the oxidizing agent gas to produce a sample of oxidized mercury gas; and the chemical reaction chamber including an output to emit the sample of oxidized mercury gas produced by the chemical reaction-enhancing medium; a first input gas line from an elemental mercury gas source to the chemical reaction chamber, the first input gas line conveying the elemental mercury gas to the reaction chamber; a second input gas line from an oxidizing agent gas source to the chemical reaction chamber, the second input gas line conveying the oxidizing agent gas to the reaction chamber; and an elemental mercury gas humidifier disposed in the first input gas line between the elemental mercury gas source and the reaction chamber, the elemental mercury gas humidifier configured to humidify the elemental mercury gas passing through the first input gas line; and wherein the porous, chemical reaction-enhancing medium includes chemical reaction surface area sites in which to react humidified elemental mercury gas received from the first gas line and the oxidizing agent gas received from the second gas line; an elemental mercury detector; a first flow path from the output of the chemical reaction chamber to the elemental mercury detector, the first flow path including an oxidized mercury gas-to-elemental mercury gas converter; and a second flow path from the output of the chemical reaction chamber to the elemental mercury detector, the second flow path disposed to bypass the oxidized mercury gas-to-elemental mercury gas converter.