Using ions to solve large-scale energy problems

Leadership and Innovation Track

with Ravi Prasher, 
CTO Bloom Energy,
Adjunct Professor UC Berkeley

November 7, 2025 – 2:30 PM
Torgersen Hall 2150

With the surging demand for electricity and limited grid capacity, the U.S. power system is increasingly strained by the rapid growth of data centers, artificial intelligence workloads, transportation electrification, and industrial decarbonization. The challenge becomes even more acute when aiming for 24×7 carbon-free electricity, as the portfolio of viable technologies remains narrow. In this talk, the speaker will discuss how thermo-electro-chemical materials and systems—particularly solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and ionocaloric materials—can enable a sustainable, scalable, and affordable energy transition. The presentation will focus on two key applications:

  1. Carbon capture and hydrogen production leveraging the solid oxide platform, and
  2. Cooling and heat pumping enabled by ionocaloric materials

 

Ravi Prasher is the Chief Technology Officer of Bloom Energy. He also serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley. Prior to joining Bloom Energy, Ravi was the Associate Lab Director of Energy Technology Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). His responsibilities included managing research and development in a wide variety of areas, including fuel cells, hydrogen production, storage and transport, electrochemical and thermal storage, carbon capture, microgrids, and renewable energy, among others. He was also a Senior Scientist at LBNL where he conducted research in thermal science and engineering. Ravi’s experience includes being one of the first program directors at US DOE’s high-risk high-reward funding agency, ARPA-E, and serving as the technology development manager of Intel’s thermal management group. Ravi has published 150+ archival papers in top science and engineering journals and holds more than 35 patents. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a lifetime Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society. Ravi obtained his B.Tech. from IIT Delhi and PhD from Arizona State University.