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{{Short description|Indian American engineer and CEO of Bloom Energy}}
{{Use Indian English|date=April 2020}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2015}}
{{Infobox person
| name = KR Sridhar
| image =
| image_size =
| caption =
| birth_name = கே.ஆர். ஸ்ரீதர்
| birth_date = 1960
| birth_place = [[Tamil Nadu]], [[India]]
| residence =
}}
'''KR Sridhar''' <ref>https://www.bloomenergy.com/kr-sridhar-phd</ref> (born {{circa|1960}}) is an [[Indian American]] engineer, professor, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman, and [[chief executive officer]] (CEO) of [[Bloom Energy]]. He was a professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering as well as Director of the Space Technologies Laboratory (STL) at the [[University of Arizona]]. Sridhar is a member of the [[National Academy of Engineering]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Stanford Global Energy Forum|url=https://gef.stanford.edu/people/kr-sridhar|accessdate=23 March 2020}}</ref>

==Education==
Sridhar was awarded a bachelor's degree in [[mechanical engineering]] from the [[National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli|National Institute of Technology at Tiruchirappalli]], [[Tamil Nadu, India]] in 1982.<ref>http://www.nitt.edu/home/icsr/alumni/daa2007-08/</ref> He moved to the United States and gained a M.S. in [[nuclear engineering]] and a PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.<ref name="timesofindia.indiatimes.com">{{cite news|url=http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-02-23/india/28131959_1_grid-electricity-disks|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811043505/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-02-23/india/28131959_1_grid-electricity-disks|url-status=dead|archive-date=11 August 2011|title=NRI readies power plant in a box|last1=Rajghatta|first1=Chidanand|work=[[The Times of India]]|date=23 February 2010}}</ref>

==Career==
Sridhar was the director of the Space Technologies Laboratory at the [[University of Arizona]] where he was also professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.<ref name=BE>
{{cite web|title=KR Sridhar, Ph.D - Principal Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer|url=http://www.bloomenergy.com/about/management-team/#sridhar}}
</ref>

===Oxygen production on Mars===
The Space Technologies Laboratory was asked by [[NASA]] to undertake research into how life could be made sustainable on [[Mars]]. The team built a device that could use [[solar power]] and water obtained from the planet to power a reactor cell that made [[oxygen]] to breathe and [[hydrogen]] to power vehicles.<ref name="Business Week">{{cite news
| last= Schenker
| first= Jennifer
| url= http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2009/gb2009127_746740.htm
| title= Bloom Energy Shifts Power via Fuel Cells
| publisher= [[Business Week]]
| date= 7 December 2009
}}</ref>
Sridhar led a project that built a Mars oxygen production cell using a [[yttria-stabilized zirconia]] solid-electrolyte [[Fast ion conductor|ionic conductor]] to electrolyse [[carbon dioxide]] into oxygen and carbon monoxide. The oxygen production unit was to fly as part of the MIP ("Mars ISPP Precursor") experiment package<ref>Kaplan, David I.; Baird, R. Scott; Ratliff, James E.; Baraona, Cosmo R.; Jenkins, Phillip P.; Landis, Geoffrey A.; Scheiman, David A.; Brinza, David E.; Johnson, Kenneth R.; Karlmann, Paul B.; Sridhar, K. R.; and Gottmann, Matthias, "[https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20100033701_2010036556.pdf The 2001 MARS IN-SITU-PROPELLANT-PRODUCTION PRECURSOR (MIP) Flight Demonstration]", Human Space Transportation and Exploration Workshop, 28 Feb. - 1 Mar. 2000, Galveston, TX</ref> that was to be sent to Mars on the [[Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander]] mission. This would have been the first demonstration of [[in-situ resource utilization]] ("ISRU") for propellant production on another planet. However, the 2001 Surveyor Lander mission was cancelled after the failure of the [[Mars Polar Lander]], which used an identical spacecraft.

===Bloom Energy===
After NASA cancelled the Mars-2001 Surveyor Lander mission, Sridhar started working on reversing the process, using oxygen and hydrogen to create power.<ref name="Business Week" />

In 2001, Sridhar was a co-founder of Ion America, later to become Bloom Energy, with a mission to "make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone on earth". Sridhar became the chief executive officer. In 2002, the company moved to the [[NASA Ames Research Center]] in [[Silicon Valley]].

On 24 February 2010, Bloom Energy launched a new energy-efficient and environmentally friendly [[fuel cell]] known as the [[Bloom Energy Server|Bloom Box]]. {{As of|2010}}, [[natural gas]] and atmospheric oxygen are pumped through a stack of cells, producing electricity, but theoretically any other gaseous fuel could be used.<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/24/bloom-box-launch-fuel-cell | location=London | work=The Guardian | first=Alok | last=Jha | title=Launch of the Bloom box fuel cell generates a slice of Apple hype | date=24 February 2010}}</ref> The energy is clean and inexpensive, but development and production of this fuel cell required a large initial investment of $100 million. Sridhar was able to obtain funding for the project from investors such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and [[New Enterprise Associates]]. Kleiner is represented on the Bloom Energy board of directors by [[John Doerr]], an early investor in companies such as Amazon and Google as well.<ref name="CBS">{{cite news | url = http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/24/eveningnews/main6239941.shtml | work=CBS News | title=Box of Clean Cheap Energy Blooms in Calif | date=24 February 2010}}</ref>

Companies such as [[Adobe Systems]], [[eBay]], [[Google]], [[FedEx]], [[Wal-Mart]] and [[Yahoo]] have already leased larger-sized boxes.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sridhar, K. R.}}
[[Category:Indian emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:University of Arizona faculty]]
[[Category:1960s births]]
[[Category:National Institutes of Technology alumni]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American businesspeople of Indian descent]]
[[Category:National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli alumni]]
[[Category:Grainger College of Engineering alumni]]
[[Category:American people of Indian Tamil descent]]
[[Category:21st-century American inventors]]

K. R. Sridhar - Revision history

imported>TJRC at 00:52, 29 July 2021