Thermodynamic analyses in the literature have shown that solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with proton conducting electrolyte (H-SOFC) exhibited higher performance than SOFC with oxygen ion conducting electrolyte (O-SOFC). However, these studies only consider H-2 electrochemical oxidation and totally neglect the contribution of CO electrochemical oxidation in O-SOFC. In this short communication, a thermodynamic model is developed to compare the theoretically maximum efficiencies of H-SOFC and O-SOFC, considering the electrochemical oxidation of CO in O-SOFC anode. It is found that O-SOFC exhibits a higher maximum efficiency than H-SOFC due to the contribution from CO electrochemical oxidation, which is contrary to the common understanding of electrolyte effect on SOFC performance. The effects of operating temperature and fuel utilization factor on the theoretical efficiency of SOFC are also analyzed and discussed. (c) 2014 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.