ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Fly Ash
for Sustainable Building Materials: A Novel
Decision Support System Incorporating Multi-
Source Information and Missing Data
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1
School of Architectural Engineering, Chongqing Industry Polytechnic College, Chongqing 401120, P. R. China
2
College of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University of Science & Technology, Chongqing, 401331,
P. R. China
Submission date: 2025-07-12
Final revision date: 2025-12-25
Acceptance date: 2026-01-05
Online publication date: 2026-03-23
Corresponding author
Yongxin Guan
School of Architectural Engineering, Chongqing Industry Polytechnic College, Chongqing 401120, P. R. China
Di Xu
College of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University of Science & Technology, Chongqing, 401331,
P. R. China
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash poses environmental risks and demands
sustainable management strategies. Reusing this byproduct in building materials offers a promising
pathway for waste reduction and resource recovery. However, selecting the most sustainable fly ash
(FA)-to-building material (BM) technology requires balancing diverse environmental, economic, and
technical criteria. This task is further complicated by data gaps and inherent uncertainties, which
often exclude emerging technologies, introduce bias through subjective weighting, and limit the
reliability of sustainability assessments. To address these gaps, this study develops a novel decision
support system (DSS) that imputes missing data using expert judgments and partial datasets, derives
balanced weights by integrating subjective preferences with objective data features, and employs the
PROMETHEE II outranking method to rank alternatives amid uncertainty and incompleteness. The
proposed DSS enhances existing assessment methods by effectively managing information gaps and
supporting robust sustainability evaluations. A case study involving seven FA-to-BM alternatives and
twelve criteria demonstrates the practical applicability and decision-making capacity of the framework.
The results highlight the system’s potential to assist complex decision-making processes and provide
methodological insights for the sustainable reuse of MSWI fly ash in building materials.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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