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. (C) The Author(s) 2015. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. All rights reserved.