General information

The use of energy, extracted from different sources, is essential for our survival. However, current energy sources are not enough for a planet that has abused of its natural resources to unsustainable limits, for the sake of development and progress. This is the reason why we are facing the great scientific and technological challenge of looking at the sun trying to replicate its fusion processes and make them possible in a controlled way here on earth as a way to find a practically unlimited source of energy that is environmentally-friendly, this is the fusion energy.

The development of materials capable of withstanding high neutron fluxes in fusion energy is a significant challenge.

The European Fusion Roadmap (2018) identifies the creation of IFMIF-DONES to address this need. The European IFMIF-DONES Facility is the central element of the DONES Programme, which aims to establish an extensive database on fusion materials.

The IFMIF-DONES facility could be also used by other (i.e. non-fusion) scientific communities, such as health-related (mainly for isotopes production), basic physics (astrophysics, solid state physics) or nuclear physics ones. It can also provide some unique technological-related services for industry.

EURATOM, together with several European countries, has been supporting the preparation for IFMIF-DONES; first, in collaboration with Japan, through the IFMIF-EVEDA project initiated in 2007 and implemented by the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (F4E) and, second, since 2015, through the EUROfusion Consortium that develops the advanced engineering design of IFMIF-DONES. Since 2018, the preparation of IFMIF-DONES is carried also out under the ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) framework.

After F4E issuing a call for proposals in 2016, the Region of Granada in Spain was selected to host and build the IFMIF-DONES facility in Europe, as proposed jointly by Spain and Croatia. The proposal received approval from the F4E Governing Board and the Council of Ministers of the EU in December 2017 and April 2018, respectively, emphasizing the need to maintain successful cooperation with Japan within the Broader Approach.

On 16 March 2023 was celebrated the 1st DONES Steering Committee in Granada, the highest governing body of the DONES Programme, and agreed, among others, to start of the construction phase of the IFMIF-DONES Facility in Escúzar (Granada).

IFMIF-DONES Facility Mission

The IFMIF-DONES Facility is defined to provide an accelerator-based D-Li neutron source to produce high energy neutrons at sufficient intensity and irradiation volume to simulate as closely as possible the first wall neutron spectrum of future nuclear fusion reactors. The IFMIF-DONES Facility (“The Facility”) should then be understood as the set of Buildings and Systems that will become the fusion relevant neutron source and that will help to fulfil the objectives of the DONES Programme.

The accelerator facility will produce a 125 mA deuteron beam, accelerated up to 40 MeV and shaped to have a nominal cross section in the range from 100 mm x 50 mm to 200 mm x 50 mm. The beam will impinge on a liquid lithium curtain 25 mm thick and cross-flowing at about 15 m/s. The stripping reactions will generate a large number of neutrons which will interact with the materials samples located immediately behind the lithium curtain, in the Test Modules.