The presence of particulate matter, emulsions, micelles, etc. may cause radiation scattering which will result in further attenuation of the transmitted beam and the measured absorbance will be too high. This error is called the
scattering error.Source:
PAC, 1988, 60, 1449. 'Nomenclature, symbols, units and their usage in spectrochemical analysis - VII. Molecular absorption spectroscopy, ultraviolet and visible (UV/VIS) (Recommendations 1988)' on page 1457 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac198860091449)