Abstract: The zirconium sol was rapidly prepared by sol-gel method with zirconium oxychloride as precursor reagent.The dried gel was calcined to ZrO2 powder.The preparation and stability of zirconium sol and characteristics of ZrO2 powder were analyzed.The pH value for formation of zirconium sol increased with the mole ratio (m) of H2O2 and ZrOCl2·8H2O,and the zirconium sol was stable at m=4-6 and pH=3-4.5.The particle size of dried gel powder decreased and particle-size distribution became narrow with the increase of m,and the mean particle size of dried powder was 21.4 μm at m=4.The crystal phase of ZrO2 powder after calcined at 450 ℃ was tetragonal,transformed into monoclinic after calcined at 900 ℃ and became complete monoclinic after calcined at 1 020 ℃ with a average particle size of 100 nm.