We focus on fly ashes of different sizes and their alkali-activation on ceramic products. Backscattered electron imaging-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy was used to classify coal fly ash particles according to particle size and to study the pre-activation of particles with different sizes. Secondary electron imaging-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy was used to study the role of coal fly ash particles of different sizes in ceramic bodies before and after alkali-activation. Ash particles can be divided into three classes based on size: clay-, quartz- and feldspar-like particles, which act as clay, quartz and feldspar, respectively, in ceramic bodies. The pre-activation process contributes to the plasticity of ash particles, the crystal skeleton role of clay-like particles and the fluxing agent role of feldspar-like particles, so preprocessing can improve the performance of ash-based ceramic tiles significantly. This research provides a new pretreatment method for coal fly ash in ceramic fields. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.