Effects of complex refractive index on optical extinction in a particle population

This paper presents a parametric study of the relationship between electromagnetic radiation transmittance and the optical properties of the particle material. A comprehensive study has been made using the Mie theory to determine the effect of realistic variations in values of the real and imaginary parts of the complex refractive index on the exponential extinction coefficient. An arbitrarily chosen log-normal particle size distribution corresponding to size measurements for particles emitted by a soda recovery unit and wavelengths from the visible (0.5 micron) through the middle infrared (5.0 micron) have been considered.