Financial difficulties did not allow him to directly pursue a university education, and he left school to work in a chemical factory for some time.

Due to support from his mentor, J. M. van Bemmelen, he became an assistant at the University of Leiden in 1878, which enabled him to start his academic education there.

The theoretical foundations for this were laid by J. Willard Gibbs with his phase rule, but Roozeboom would be the one to apply the theory and demonstrate its usefulness.

He also contributed to the science of chiral substances, clarified how to distinguish the different types of crystalline racemates and predicted how mixtures of enantiomers behave in a heterogeneous system of solid and solution.

In 1911, the Bakhuis Roozeboom Fund was established in his honour; every four years it awards a gold medal for research on phase theory.