Distinct microstructure and property evolution of 0.76(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3-0.24SrTiO3 ferroelectric ceramics synthesized with different TiO2 reactants

•The 0.76(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3–0.24SrTiO3 ferroelectric ceramics, which is a subtle composition with coexisted rhombohedral and tetragonal phases, were synthesized with homogenous anatase and hierarchical rutile TiO2 raw reactants (BNST-A and BNST-R).•BNST-A illustrates predominant ergodic relaxor state, BNST-R prefers to non-ergodic relaxor state, as evidenced by the distinct polarization-electric field loops and current-electric field curves.•The special hierarchical microstructure of rutile TiO2 reactant is beneficial to form denser ceramics with larger grains, and thus suppresses the contributions of polar nanoregions and defect-induced built-in field to ferroelectric property, leading to non-ergodic relaxor state.