China is the largest coal consumer around the world, and coal accounts for more than 60% of the country's energy mix (Peng et al. 2018; Wang et al. 2019).Coal fly ash (CFA), a solid waste produced by coalfired thermal power plants during the combustion of pulverized coal, is currently one of the largest solid wastes in China (Yao et al. 2015).In 2018, the annual output of CFA in China ...