The preparation of Ba 0.85 Ca 0.15 Zr 0.1 Ti 0.9 O 3 (BCZT) powders by wet chemical methods has been investigated, and the powders used to explore relationships between the microstructure and piezoelectric properties (d 33 coefficient) of sintered BCZT ceramics. Sol-gel synthesis has been shown to be a successful method for the preparation of BCZT nanopowders with a pure tetragonal perovskite phase structure, specific surface area up to 21.8 m 2 /g and a mean particle size of 48 nm. These powders were suitable for the fabrication of dense BCZT ceramics with fine-grain microstructures. The ceramics with the highest density of 95% theoretical density (TD) and grain size of 1.3 lm were prepared by uniaxial pressing followed by a two-step sintering approach which contributed to the refinement of the BCTZ microstructure. A decrease in the grain size to 0.8-0.9 lm was achieved when samples were prepared using cold isostatic pressing. Using various sintering schedules, BCZT ceramics with broad range of grain sizes (0.8-60.5 lm) were prepared. The highest d 33 = 410.8 AE 13.2 pC/N was exhibited by ceramics prepared from sol-gel powder sintered at 1425°C, with the relative density of 89.6%TD and grain size of 36 lm.