• The METEOR project, co-funded by the Horizon Europe Program, has a budget of nearly 3 million euros and will improve the detection of illicit substances thanks to its vapor-based detection technology.

• The illegal substances it will be able to detect include drugs, explosives and even biological threats, among many others

Valencia, 31st October 2023. – Fundación Valenciaport has begun to work on the METEOR project, an initiative that seeks to increase the safety of maritime transport, specifically of goods transported by container.
METEOR, which will run from October 2023 to September 2026, has a total budget of nearly 3 million euros, and is co-financed by the Horizon Europe program.

Maritime transport is essential for the supply of goods around the world, with containers being the simplest, cheapest and most efficient way of transporting them. This represents a unique opportunity for business development, but they can be used for criminal purposes as well. Consequently, container inspections have become a major focus of border inspection agencies, especially in Western European countries, where ports handle and distribute most of the container traffic to the most populated areas of Europe. As such, it is the highest risk mode for contraband due to the huge volumes and complex/heterogeneous cargoes.

In today’s port logistics, less than 5% of containers are subject to physical inspections due to the large amount of goods handled by European customs.

The solution proposed by the METEOR project involves detecting these types of illegal substances in an intelligent way, using a vapor-based detection technology that utilizes innovative sampling technologies, as well as innovative analytical instrumentation and processing techniques based on Non-Targeted Screening (NTS).

Among the main features of the tool are its portable, multi-purpose nature, to other scenarios; or its affordable, non-intrusive character, with a high Detection Rate (DR) and low False Alarm Rate (FAR). In addition, the illicit substances it will detect include drugs, explosives and even biological threats, among many others.

Regarding the coordination and development of the project, the METEOR consortium is formed by 12 partners representing 4 countries; The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Ireland.

The role of Fundación Valenciaport
Fundación Valenciaport will play a key role in the project. On the one hand, it will guarantee access to scan containers in the Port of Valencia, and on the other hand, it will be in charge of facilitating, for the companies that will develop the technology, the collection of more than 250 air samples from actual containers, which will be carried out in one of the terminals of the port itself.