A simple method of oxygen removal has been developed for a flow injection anodic stripping voltammetry system, based on an electrochemical flow-cell design which incorporates effective nitrogen purging. The application of the system to the determination of copper, lead and cadmium in sea water samples is also described. The analyses were performed in the differential-pulse mode at a renewable pre-plated glassy carbon based mercury film wall-jet electrode. The limits of detection for the metals were between 10–10 and 10–9 M for a deposition time of 3 min.