Nuclear: Fusion, ENEA spin-off wins European award for technology transfer

The ENEA spin-off ICAS, a company also involving leading firms in the superconductivity sector such as Tratos Cavi and Criotec Impianti, has won the 2024 Fusion Technology Transfer Award, promoted by the European Commission, EUROfusion and Fusion for Energy (F4E).

The award, granted to ICAS for the know-how it developed in the field of conductors for nuclear fusion, aims to recognize organizations that have successfully transferred experience, skills, and expertise from fusion research into new markets, generating economic and social value.

ICAS was founded in 2010 with the goal of manufacturing superconducting cables for the experimental ITER reactor, the large-scale project under construction in Cadarache, which involves collaboration between Europe, Japan, the United States, Russia, China, India, and South Korea. Since then, the company has won several contracts for high-tech products and services worldwide. Among these—again through F4E—is the tokamak JT-60SA, inaugurated in 2023 in Naka, Japan, designed and built under the EU-Japan Broader Approach agreement, which in 2024 set a world record for plasma volume at 160 cubic meters, as certified by Guinness World Records.

With over 100 km of superconducting cables produced in total for ITER and JT-60SA, ICAS has played a fundamental role in the development of industrial-scale superconducting cable technology. Through significant investments, multiple production lines for magnet cables have been built; various manufacturing processes have also been qualified according to strict quality standards for precision cable winding and stainless steel tube welding.

Recently, ICAS also produced around 15 km of superconducting cables for DTT, the all-Italian experimental machine for nuclear fusion research, currently under construction at the ENEA Research Center in Frascati.

The know-how and capabilities acquired through contracts for F4E and DTT have opened doors to other markets, including the medical sector and high-field magnets, with ICAS participating in Big Science projects worldwide. In fact, ICAS has supplied custom superconducting cables to prestigious research centers including NHMFL (USA), EMFL (Netherlands), and Helmholtz-Zentrum (Germany). Among the most recent deliveries is also CERN, with magnesium diboride (MgB₂) cables for the major HiLumi LHC (High Luminosity LHC) physics project, which will enhance the luminosity of CERN’s LHC super-accelerator.