Hull cleaning company Fleet Cleaner has successfully completed trials in Belgian ports, and now has permission to clean ships in the Port of Antwerp, Zeebrugge and Ghent. Fleet Cleaner has designed a unique hull cleaning robot which uses high pressure waterjets to remove biofouling from the ship’s hull during loading and unloading in port, resulting in significant fuel savings for shipping companies. The robot captures the removed fouling and pumps it to a containerized wastewater treatment system on board the support vessel. The full operation is conducted without divers, and the robot is controlled from the support vessel. Fleet Cleaner has been working successfully with its innovative hull cleaning robot and wastewater treatment system in all Dutch ports for the past two years, and now expands its hull cleaning services to Belgian ports.

The test trials were executed in Ghent and Antwerp, where multiple samples have been taken of the water around the robot, the collected wastewater and the filtered water which was released back in port. These were analyzed by an independent laboratory, and results have confirmed the high efficiency of the waste capturing system and the wastewater treatment system, as well as the minimal impact to the environment of the entire cleaning operation. The wastewater is filtered down to 1 micron and then released back into port. The captured waste is collected in big bags and disposed off onshore by a certified waste processor.

As Fleet Cleaner has previously shown that it is capable of cleaning any ship type – ranging from container vessels and ro-ro ferries to bulk carriers and oil tankers, the demand for the in-water cleaning service is high. With this permission from the authorities, Fleet Cleaner now offer its services 24/7 in the entire ARAG region.

More information is found at www.fleetcleaner.com or via info@fleetcleaner.com