Bloom Box: Bloom Energy is changing the way the world generates and consumes energy.
The unique on-site power generation systems utilize an innovative new fuel cell technology with roots in NASA's Mars program.
The Bloom Box is traditional fuel cell stacks consisting of ceramic and proton exchange membranes separated by metal catalyst plates. However, instead of luxurious platinum, Sridhar has engineered an inexpensive metal alloy substitute. Methane (or other hydrocarbons) and oxygen are fed in, the whole thing is heated up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, and electricity comes out. Bloom estimates that a box filled with 64 ceramic disks can produce enough juice to power a Starbucks.
Bloom Energy announced its plans to raise $150 million in sixth-round capital to establish a market for its product called Bloom Box. Bloom Energy says it has booked most of this funding with Advanced Equities Investment. Bloom Energy’s planned Initial Public Offering or IPO has been valued at $1.45 billion.
So what is this product called Bloom Box and what makes it one of the most sought after energy efficient device by most huge corporations? Accordingly, Bloom Box is like an industrial-sized refrigerator, that sucks up oxygen on one side and fuel (natural gas, biomass, etc) on the other. Reports say that Bloom Energy bakes sand and cuts it into little squares that are turned into a ceramic, which are then coated with green and black “inks.” Using a special process, Bloom Energy creates these ceramic discs and stacks them together interspersed with metal plates of “a cheap metal alloy.” The bigger the stack the more power the Bloom Box will create.
Bloom Energy is secret sauce that makes it special. It is used to create an ink-coated floppy-disk-size ceramic tile. These are then stacked into small blocks, and multiple stacks are housed in a unit about the size of a refrigerator. The recent cost for each hand-made Bloom Box of the business size is $700,000-800,000. Bloom box ceramic plates are prepared by baking common beach sand and each ceramic plate is coated with a “secret” green ink on one side and another secret black ink on the other side.
