In the present study, the mechanical strength as well as the ionic conductivity of the scandia- and ytterbium oxide-codoped zirconia electrolyte is investigated during annealing. Based on the annealing effect on both properties, the degradation mechanism is discussed. The X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopic analyses confirmed that annealing enhanced the tetragonal phase content in the samples which initially contained the tetragonal phase. The samples with the rhombohedral phase showed no phase changes. The samples initially with the tetragonal phase showed a significant decrease in the conductivity but an increase in the strength whereas the samples with the rhombohedral phase generally showed no change and the ones with the cubic phase showed slight decreases in both properties. From above results, the conductivity degradation of the sample with the tetragonal phase was attributed to two causes: the formation of low conductive but transformable t-phase from the high conductive t'-phase and the formation of t-phase from the C-phase. The annealing effect was little for the samples initially with rhombohedral phase and complex for the ones with cubic phase. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.