Near-infrared turbidity of beta-FeOOH particle suspensions

Near-infrared transmission spectroscopy can be complicated by the light scattering from heterogeneous materials. To examine an evolving system exhibiting such light scattering, transmission spectra are obtained during the hydrolysis of iron chloride solutions. At first, the resulting turbid suspension of cigar-shaped beta-FeOOH particles exhibits single-particle scattering, including a Rayleigh regime (attenuation proportional to the fourth power of the wavenumber). At later times, the scattering increases strongly as the particles aggregate, and becomes proportional to the wavenumber squared, consistent with scattering models which interpret the structure of aggregates in terms of a fractal dimension roughly equal to 2