Topological Surface States Gradient Multilayers for Heavy-Metal Capture and Resource Recovery

PROBLEM: Gradient multilayers can grade a topological surface layer through a stack so that capture, transport, and release zones each see a different surface composition, but the protected state may only survive in one zone. A capture design that assumes the state helps everywhere will misplace its binding layers. Recovery modellers need a cloud model that places the surface state in a specific zone rather than treating it as stack-wide.

SOLUTION: IBM Cloud Ideas would host a cloud model for topological gradient capture stacks that assigns the surface-state assumption to a named zone — capture, transport, or release — and keeps biosorbent binding as the documented mechanism elsewhere. The capability would attach regeneration and reuse accounting to each zone and let designers see how moving the surface layer changes the modelled stack. It models zone placement, not capture.

EVIDENCE BASIS: DOCUMENTED as physics — Conducting surface/edge states protected by band topology (Nobel Prize in Physics 2016); catalytic application is REPORTED/emerging; gradient multilayers grade composition and porosity through the stack; DFT predicts surface-group binding and biosorption is validated via batch isotherms. Source: Nobel Prize in Physics 2016; Hohenberg–Kohn 1964; Kohn–Sham 1965.