Professor Ruan’s research focuses on various aspects of value-added processing, sustainable development, renewable energy and environment, and food engineering. His current interests include catalytic nonthermal plasma synthesis of ammonia and other nitrogen products, intermittent vacuum assisted thermophilic anaerobic digestion and algae and aquaponics system for complete waste utilization, catalytic microwave assisted pyrolysis and gasification of biomass and solid wastes for energy fuels, chemicals, and materials production, food shelf stability and quality enhancement and safety assurance.
Professor Ruan has published over 450 papers in refereed journals, co-authored 2 books, 20 book chapters, and over 300 meeting papers and reports, and holds 18 US patents. He is a fellow of ASABE and a fellow of IFT, and also a top cited author in the area of agricultural and biological sciences with an h-index of 53, i10- index of 182 and over 11,000 citations. He has supervised over 65 graduate students, 125 post-doctors, research fellows, and other engineers and scientists, and 13 of his Ph.D. students and 8 other post-doctors hold university faculty positions. He has received over 175 projects totaling over $40 million in various funding for research, including major funding from USDA, DOE, DOT, DOD, and industries. He has served as an editorial board member of Bioresource Technology, Engineering, Journal of Food Process Engineering, The Open Plasma Physics Journal, and Associate Editor of Transactions of ASABE, Engineering Applications in Agriculture, and Transactions of CSAE, and Chairman of Editorial Board and Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
Professor Ruan has also given over 290 keynote lectures, invited symposium presentations, company seminars, and short courses, and has been a consultant for government agencies, and many local, national, and international companies and agencies in bioprocess engineering, food engineering, and renewable energy and environment areas. He has taught many undergraduate and graduate courses, including Renewable energy technologies, Biological process engineering, Managing water in food and biological systems, Instrumentation and control for biological systems, Food process engineering, and Engineering principles and applications, etc.