The optical thickness of highly attenuating packed-bed particulate media can be significantly reduced and, consequently, the radiation heat transfer enhanced, by the addition of large (> 100 mu m) semi-transparent SiO2 particles. The monochromatic transmittance of packed-bed mixtures of SiO2, ZnO, and C particles of various relative mass fractions is experimentally measured as a function of the packed-bed thickness using a He-Ne laser/fiber optic/spectrometer system. Two functions, one derived from the general solution of the equation of radiative transfer for an absorbing-scattering-non emitting medium, and a second one derived from Bouguer's law, were fitted to the experimental data and used to elucidate the effect of the incoming scattering and optical thickness on the medium transmittance. The augmenting contribution of the incoming scattering diminishes with increasing content of highly absorbing carbon particles, and, when it becomes negligible, the extinction coefficient is directly determined by applying Bouguer's law for attenuation of incident radiation along its path.