Construction is underway for the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility at the ENEA Frascati Research Centre in Italy, a specialized machine designed to address one of the most critical challenges for commercial fusion energy: power exhaust. The project, a public-private partnership, aims to test advanced divertor concepts capable of withstanding the intense heat and particle fluxes expected in a demonstration power plant like DEMO. The DTT is a high-field, superconducting tokamak engineered specifically to create plasma conditions relevant to a reactor's edge and divertor regions, providing a dedicated testbed for technologies that will be essential for machines beyond ITER. The total project cost exceeds EUR 600 million, sourced from a combination of Italian government funding, a European Investment Bank loan, and contributions from industrial partners and the EUROfusion consortium. Source: Iter

The DTT's primary mission is to qualify divertor technologies for DEMO. Future reactors are projected to generate heat fluxes on divertor target plates of up to 20 MW/m², a power density that conventional solid materials cannot sustain over long periods. The DTT will replicate these demanding conditions to test a portfolio of solutions, including conventional single-null divertors with advanced materials, alternative magnetic configurations like the snowflake and X-divertor, and innovative liquid metal divertor concepts. By providing a focused experimental platform, the facility will bridge a crucial gap between current experiments and the operational requirements of a fusion power plant, directly informing the final design of the DEMO divertor system. Source: Iter

[Source: Iter](https://www.iter.org/node/20687/public/private-consortium-building-dtt-tokamak)

The DTT device itself is a significant superconducting tokamak with a major radius of 2.19 meters, a plasma current of up to 5.5 MA, and a 6 T toroidal magnetic field. It will be equipped with up to 45 MW of additional heating power to sustain high-performance plasmas for pulse durations of up to 100 seconds. These parameters are designed to produce a power-exhaust-relevant plasma environment without requiring the full scale or D-T fuel cycle of a larger machine like ITER. This focused approach allows for more rapid and cost-effective iteration on divertor components and plasma-facing materials, accelerating the development timeline for key power plant technologies. Source: Iter

The project's funding structure represents a significant collaboration between public research institutions and private industry. The Italian government's Ministry of University and Research provided EUR 250 million, complemented by a EUR 250 million loan from the European Investment Bank. The EUROfusion consortium contributed EUR 40 million, the Lazio Region provided EUR 30 million, and a consortium of private companies—including Eni, Ansaldo Nucleare, Walter Tosto, and Fincantieri—contributed EUR 60 million. This blended financing model underscores the strategic importance of solving the power exhaust problem for the European fusion roadmap and highlights growing private sector involvement in building the necessary infrastructure. Source: Iter

With construction having commenced in 2023, the DTT project is targeting first plasma in 2030. The operational phase will be critical for validating the physics and engineering of next-generation divertors. Data from DTT experiments will directly influence the final design choices for DEMO and subsequent commercial reactors, determining the viability of various heat exhaust strategies. The fusion community will be closely watching the DTT's progress as it tackles the material science and plasma physics challenges of the reactor edge, a necessary step toward realizing robust and economically viable fusion energy. Source: Iter