In 1919, he invented the mercury steam ejector, and he published a paper,[5] with Otto Stern which resulted in the attribution of the Stern–Volmer equation and constant.

In 1922, he was appointed ordinarius professor and director of the Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry Institute of Technical University Berlin (Berlin-Charlottenburg); the position was previously held by Walther Nernst.

In 1930, he published a paper[10] from which was attributed the Butler-Volmer equation,[11] based on earlier work[12] of John Alfred Valentine Butler.

[3] During the end times of the World War II, Max Volmer, Manfred von Ardenne, director of his private laboratory Forschungslaboratoriums für Elektronenphysik, Gustav Hertz, director of Research Laboratory II at Siemens, and Peter Adolf Thiessen, ordinarius professor at the University of Berlin, had made a pact.

The objectives of their pact were threefold: (1) Prevent plunder of their institutes, (2) Continue their work with minimal interruption, and (3) Protect themselves from prosecution for any political acts of the past.

[24] Volmer's group with Victor Bayerl, a physical chemist and Gustav Richter a physicist, was under Alexander Mikailovich Rosen, and they designed a heavy water production process and facility based on the counterflow of ammonia.

The installation was constructed at Norilsk and completed in 1948, after which Volmer's organization was transferred to Zinaida Yershova’s group, which worked on plutonium extraction from fission products.

On 10 November 1955, became a member of the Wissenschaftlichen Rates für die friedliche Anwendung der Atomenergie of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).