ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A 23-year-old student from India has earned an entry in the Guinness World Records after creating the world's smallest vacuum cleaner.

Measuring just 0.65 cm - less than the width of an average small fingernail - the device is 0.2 cm smaller than the previous record which was set in 2022.

Tapala Nadamuni's vacuum is made mostly from a refillable ballpoint pen and has a tiny rotating fan inside. This is powered by a four-volt vibration motor which creates suction.

When connected to a power source the vacuum makes a whirring sound and is able to suck up dust particles, which can then be emptied out afterwards.

For the purposes of the Guinness World Records a vacuum cleaner is defined as an electrically-powered device that picks up debris using suction resulting from a negative internal pressure.

Nadamuni, who studies architecture at the Patna National Institute of Technology, has been inventing gadgets since he was a small child. "All the students in our college were amazed at this tiny vacuum cleaner, and my faculty told me that it's the most beautiful creation they've ever seen," he said.

The vacuum is measured by the shortest axis of its body, which means the handle and power cord dimensions are excluded from the final measurement.

The previous record holder was Nadamuni himself who developed a 1.76-cm vacuum cleaner in 2022. He has spent the intervening years trying to improve on his record and has had two rejected attempts in the interim.