PCET Quantum-Tunneling Gradient Multilayers for Selective Ion Sensors

PROBLEM: A gradient sensor stack can place a selective capture zone above a proton-transport zone, but the signal may reflect the slowest zone rather than the target ion's binding. Tunneling in the transport zone can change that balance at low temperature, making a sensor that is selective in the lab less selective in the field. Sensor teams need a cloud model that keeps each zone's role explicit.

SOLUTION: IBM Cloud Ideas would provide a cloud model for PCET gradient sensors that represents capture, transport, and readout zones separately, with temperature and pH attached to each zone's assumptions. The capability would let designers test how a change in one zone's coupled-transfer condition propagates to the reported signal, without claiming the sensor will behave that way in practice. It models zone interactions, not sensor accuracy.

EVIDENCE BASIS: DOCUMENTED — PCET couples proton and electron motion, with tunneling contributing at low temperature; DFT predicts which surface groups bind which ions; biosorption validation uses batch isotherms (qe = (C0 − Ce)V/m). Source: Hohenberg–Kohn 1964; Kohn–Sham 1965; Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1998.