[citation needed] Hailing from the small mining town of Broken Hill, New South Wales, he was early exposed to the role of inorganic chemistry.
[1][5] Nyholm's research in inorganic chemistry was primarily concerned with the preparation of transition metal compounds, particularly those involving organo-arsenic ligands.
Using the strong chelating ligand diars, Nyholm demonstrated a range of oxidation states and coordination numbers for several of the transition metals.
After joining Sydney Technology college in 1940 Nyholm formed a close personal friendship with Francis (Franky) Dwyer and they collaborated in their research.
Despite heavy teaching loads, between 1942 and 1947 they reported complexes of rhodium, iridium, and osmium in seventeen papers in the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales.
Nyholm prepared examples of divalent octahedral complexes of the type M(diars)2X2, where X is Cl, Br or I, and M is Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Mo, Tc, Ru, Pd, W, Re, Os, and Pt.
The chromium compounds were eventually synthesized by his co-worker Anthony Nicholl Rail only a month before Nyholm's death, using rigorous air-free techniques.
[10] Together with Professor Ronald Gillespie, Nyholm developed the VSEPR (Valence shell electron pair repulsion) theory for the simple prediction of molecular geometry.
[11][12] In 1957 Nyholm organized the first of an annual series of Summer Schools at University College on new aspects of chemical knowledge and theory, and demonstrations of new equipment.