Rotterdam claims world’s first hydrogen street vacuum cleaner

The Dutch city wants to be a testing ground for hydrogen technology

Rotterdam will be the first city in the world to vacuum its wells using a hydrogen-powered truck, the municipality informed on Tuesday. The city is now using a special truck with a built-in suction system, which is powered by sustainable fuel.

The vehicle will add up to the city’s expanding sustainable cleaning fleet, which also includes electric garbage trucks.

Leading by example

The process of cleaning sewages requires a lot of energy to work well, hence the nature of its energy source matters. In the case of the new cleaning truck of Rotterdam, this will be small batteries, supplied with hydrogen. This allows it to work longer and drive greater distances than a fully electric truck, the authorities explain.

On top of this, the truck produces only water vapour, hence no exhaust gases. Another advantage is the low levels of noise it produces.

The vehicle is here to stay for permanent, and it will soon be allowed to enter the city’s Zero Emission Zone – the area where polluting cars and machines are no longer allowed.

Rotterdam has decided to make its own municipal fleet more sustainable and this, naturally, goes through some creative solutions. The move falls well into the city’s Municipal Vision on Hydrogen that TheMayor.EU previously reported on, albeit in 2020 the focus was more on the industry, rather than on city maintenance.

The municipality’s alderman for sustainability was quoted saying back then that:

“Hydrogen is the missing piece of the puzzle in our search for a sustainable energy system. Because hydrogen is not only an essential link in the greening of industry, but we can also use it as a battery to store our green energy from solar panels and windmills."