Dr. Lap-Cuong Hua is a Lecturer/Researcher in the Department of Water Supply Sanitation and Environmental Engineering at IHE Delft, The Netherlands. His research interests are in conventional and advanced water treatment processes and water quality control. He received his B.A. in Environmental Engineering from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam in 2012. He continued to receive his M.S. in 2014 and Ph.D. in 2018, both in Environmental Engineering at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU/NYCU), Taiwan. After graduation, he visited Stanford University as a visiting scholar researcher in early 2019. He had five years of experience as a Postdoctoral Researcher in NCTU/NYCU, Taiwan, before joining IHE Delft in November 2023.
He dedicates his research to enhancing the safety of drinking water, focusing on water quality control and employing a blend of environmental sciences and engineering for the betterment of sustainable water production for public health. His topics include:
- Chlorination and Disinfection: Conventional treatments using chlorine disinfections are essential to protect public health. However, there is a tradeoff between microbial activation and chlorinated DBP formation. He thus explores new alternative chemical disinfection to overcome this drawback but still maintains disinfection efficiency.
- Organics-derived disinfection byproducts: DBPs are carcinogens. Consuming water containing elevated DBPs causes serious cancer. He urges to understand better knowledge for DBP mitigation and control in water work.
- Characterization of natural organic matter: NOM is a major organic precursor of DBPs. He explores the physiochemical properties of different NOMs from terrestrial and microbial systems and provides a better understanding of the knowledge of organic-derived DBP.
- Drinking water quality control: Safe drinking water quality is a mandatory goal for water treatment utilities worldwide. He seeks to understand the transformation of water quality before, during, and after treatment processes to protect public health.
- AOPs for emerging organics and metal ions decontamination: Nowadays, emerging persistent organic contaminants become critical concerns in the aquatic environment. He here seeks to explore selective and green novel AOPs to improve decontamination of both organics and inorganics pollutants.
Treatment algae-containing water: Algal eutrophication deteriorates water quality with algal cytotoxic and algogenic organic matter. He here explores different chemical dosing approaches using oxidants and coagulants to achieve an effective removal of algae and its produced organics.
Publications
A complete list of publications can be found in Google Scholar.