This work investigates the sintering characteristics and electrical properties of SDC electrolytes prepared with glycine-nitrate-combustion derived powders, which are often used for fabricating dense SDC electrolyte films using a dry-pressing process. The compact powders show the highest sintering rate at 730 degrees C and are sintered to 90.7% of theoretical density at 1300 degrees C for 5 h. However, using the powder as the precursor, SDC films can be sintered to be much denser (about 99% of the theoretical density) even at 1250 degrees C when the electrolyte layers are co-sintered with NiO-SDC substrates. In addition to increased density, increasing the sintering temperature causes enlargement of crystalline parameters, which is possibly due to the reduction of Ce(4+) to Ce(3+). The reduction is associated with the formation of oxygen vacancies, which might cause defect-association and thus promote the activation energy for oxygen-ion conduction. It is found that the conductivity increases with the sintering temperature to its maximum when SDC is sintered at 1300 degrees C. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.