The swirl cyclone scrubber analyzed in this paper is a novel aerosol filtering device in which a uniflow cyclone and a scrubber are combined. Systematic experiments showed that the swirl scrubberis a promising device that has minimal installation, operational, and maintenance costs. In this article, theoretical analyses are developed for the swirl cyclone scrubber. The dependency of particle collection efficiency on the design and operating parameters observed by experiments is explained using a theoretical parameterization to provide guidelines for optimal design and operation of the device. Discussion on possible variations of the swirl cyclone scrubber is also presented based on the theoretical parameterization developed. Crown Copyright (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.