This study investigated analytic solutions for the overall collection efficiency of polydispersed aerosols in a cyclone collector. The moment method was used to calculate size distribution parameters of particles removed by the cyclone collector. Both Leith and Lichts' model and a modified Clift's model were considered for polydispersed particles. The results showed that the analytic solutions are comparable with numerical results. Subsequently, this study showed that overall collection efficiency and the change in particle size distribution through the cyclone collector can be obtained analytically. The obtained results can be expected to supply information about polydispersed effects in the cyclone collector for various aerosol size distributions. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.