The use of XANES to clarify issues related to bonding environments in metakaolin: a discussion of the paper S. Sperinck et al., Dehydroxylation of kaolinite to metakaolin-a molecular dynamics study, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 2118-2125

We provide a discussion of some issues raised by a recent paper published in Journal of Materials Chemistry regarding the local structure of metakaolin. Furthermore, we show using synchrotron X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) that tri-coordinated aluminium sites can exist in metakaolin, providing new evidence regarding the coordination environment of aluminium in metakaolin.