In this study, analytical solutions for penetration efficiency of a polydisperse aerosol in fibrous filter were derived employing Brownian diffusion and inertial impaction as removal mechanisms. Size distribution of aerosol particles was assumed to be represented by a log-normal function during the filtration. Derived solutions were compared with the exact solution, which is not based on the log-normal assumption, showing good agreement. Error resulting from the log-normal assumption was shown to be greater in the impaction-dominant regime than in the diffusion-dominant regime due to higher size dependency of collision kernel which destructed log-normal shape of size distribution. The penetration efficiency of the analytic solution initially decreases faster and then decreases slower than that of the exact solution in the diffusion-and intermediate dominant size regimes due to its polydispersity of particle distribution, while it overpredicted the particle removal in the impaction size range because of neglect of polidispersity effect. A new solution for the most penetrating particle diameter was also provided showing the dependence on filtration velocity, fiber volume fraction, and fiber size. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.