On 5 November 2025, Dr. Valentina Erastova from the University of Edinburgh delivered an academic lecture entitled “Accurate Molecular Models of Natural and Environmental Materials” to faculty members and students of our college. The seminar was held in Conference Room E202, School of Environmental Studies, and was chaired by Prof. Zhou Mingxi; more than 40 teachers and students attended the session.

Dr. Valentina Erastova is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She leads a group that develops molecular models to investigate natural materials and address environmental challenges. With an interdisciplinary background spanning chemistry and Earth sciences, her work focuses on layered minerals, biochar, the processes that may have sparked life beyond Earth, and the detection of biosignatures on Mars. Committed to demonstrating the societal value of science, she founded the outreach initiative “Scientist Next Door” and serves on the editorial board of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.

Dr. Valentina Erastova presented a comprehensive account of the functional environmental material biochar. She constructed an experimentally verifiable, fully atomistic microstructural model that precisely links pore characteristics to physiochemical properties, enabling a clear elucidation of biochar’s adsorption behaviour and mechanisms toward CO₂, Mn²⁺ and related species. Building on porous-media mass-transfer theory, she dissected the pronounced differences in diffusion rates within pores of varying sizes and, through model fitting, quantitatively revealed how pyrolysis temperature governs adsorption pathways. Furthermore, the Erastova group has extended this molecular-simulation framework to Martian and early-Earth mineral systems, proposing that mineral–organic interactions can serve as robust indicators of extraterrestrial fossil biosignatures. All associated models have been released open-source, offering a computationally rigorous and experimentally accessible toolkit for the search for life beyond Earth.

After the lecture, faculty members and students engaged in an in-depth exchange with Dr. Erastova on topics such as the accuracy of molecular models. The session was marked by a vibrant academic atmosphere and significantly deepened participants’ understanding of molecular simulation in environmental materials.