The time resolution of the atomic emission spectroelectrochemical (AESEC) flow cell has been investigated by numerical simulations. The results demonstrate that the time resolution of the AESEC electrochemical flow cell may be simulated numerically based on the consideration of electrolyte flow patterns and ion transport in the cell. The residence time distribution (RTD) closely approximates a log-normal distribution for both experiment and simulation. Time resolution may be improved by increasing the flow rate, however this also leads to marked heterogeneities in the flow field near the surface. An optimum flow rate of 3 cm 3 min −1 was determined. The problem may be avoided somewhat by using a mask to cover all the surface except for a small portion near the center of the flow cell. Corrosion, dissolution and passivation occur spontaneously on the surface of metals in the presence of aggressive electrolytes. In order to accurately predict the evolution of these systems it is necessary to have real-time kinetic data so that the rate laws of the different elementary reactions may be identified. Atomic emission spectroelectrochemistry (AESEC) is an analytical technique that allows monitoring the dissolution of a large number of elements, simultaneously, in real time, during the reaction of a material with an aggressive electrolyte. References [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] describe the history, the instrumentation, and typical applications of this technique. Briefly, an inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) is used to continuously monitor the concentration of dissolved elements downstream from an electrochemical flow cell. Within the time resolution of the system, the instantaneous concentration flowing out of the cell (C M (t)) and the instantaneous dissolution rate at the working electrode/electrolyte interface (v M (t)) are directly related to each other as follows:where f e is the flow rate through the cell. The use of the technique is therefore very similar to that of a rotating ring disk electrode (RRDE) in which the electrochemical detection at the ring is replaced by the ICP-AES down stream from the flow cell. The major advantage of this technique is that we may simultaneously follow any number of species dissolving from the working electrode and usually with simplified quantification and sample preparation. On the other hand, as compared to the RRDE, AESEC has significantly lower time resolution. Several other research groups have proposed similar couplings in recent years. A quasi-identical electrochemical flow cell was used by Mercier et al. to investigate the corrosion 12 and the anodization of Al 13,14 also using ICP-AES detection. Voith et al. 15 have proposed an electrochemical flow cell using atomic absorption spectroscopy. Homozava et al. [16][17][18] and Ott et al. 19 proposed a capillary flow cell coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) as a means of following multielement corrosion and dissolution with improved spatial resolution. Along...