BEHOLDER at SICC 2026: Taking CBRN-E Protection from Detection to Recovery

BEHOLDER Project

BEHOLDER at SICC 2026: Taking CBRN-E Protection from Detection to Recovery

What happens after a CBRN-E threat has been detected? For BEHOLDER, the answer is clear: detection is only the beginning.

At the 4th SICC Series CBRNe Conference in Rome (28 September – 3 October 2026), Professor Jean-Luc Gala, Director of the Center for Applied Molecular Technologies (CTMA) at UCLouvain, a BEHOLDER partner, who also co-chaired the conference’s session on biological threats, presented recent research on vaporised hydrogen peroxide (VHP) for the safe decontamination of sensitive electronic equipment.

Protecting the technology that protects cities

BEHOLDER is developing an integrated approach to urban CBRN-E protection, combining IoT-enabled sensors, AI-based anomaly detection, modelling and smart-city infrastructure such as SmartFurniture.

These technologies will help cities detect and understand threats in public spaces. After an incident, however, the sensors, detectors and electronic systems themselves may be contaminated – and bringing them safely back into service becomes a critical part of recovery.

The CTMA research addresses exactly this question. In laboratory and field cycles, controlled, non-condensing VHP achieved complete inactivation of highly resistant bacterial spores while keeping sensitive electronic equipment functional. These pre-normative results point to a practical way of decontaminating critical electronics after a biological incident, so that contaminated sensors can be returned to service rather than replaced.

This work builds on several EU-funded projects in which CTMA has been involved: eNOTICE-2 (Union Civil Protection Mechanism), TeamUP and eNOVATION (Horizon Europe), and Easy2reUSE (EU4Health/HERA). BEHOLDER now opens a direct new field of application: protecting and recovering the urban sensing infrastructure the project deploys.

From detection to resilience

For BEHOLDER, this extension reinforces a key idea behind the project: CBRN-E resilience does not end when a threat is detected. Detection, response, decontamination and recovery form one chain, and keeping essential electronic systems operational is part of it.

By linking advanced sensing and AI-based detection with research on safe recovery, the BEHOLDER community is helping cities not only detect CBRN-E threats earlier, but also return to normal operation faster.