His father Ivan Khristov was a hardware man, who died in 1918 after having fought in World War I, when Khristo Ivanov was just two.
After teaching Chemistry at school level in the towns of Popovo and Karlovo for a few years, he acquired the position of regular Assistant Professor at the same faculty in 1946.
In collaboration with Peter Markov, Ivanov established for the first time the possibility for metalation of CH-acidic compounds with magnesium in liquid ammonia.
New synthetic methods were developed, involving the reaction of ambident nucleophilic reagents (prepared by metalation of esters, nitriles and amides of alkanoic and arylacetic acids) with N-acylated aldimines and ketimines.
[5] Ivanov and his lab studied in detail the reaction of 2-benzylbenzazoles with aromatic aldehydes under phase-transfer catalysis or in aprotic solvents in the presence of a water solution of sodium hydroxide leading to 2-styrylbenzazols or alcohols having a benzazole ring.