Aurivillius received his basic scientific education at the then Stockholm University where he graduated in 1937 and earned a fil. lic. in 1943. By 1949, he had made some important discoveries about the oxidation of mixed metals, which became quite prominent in the world of chemistry.  He completed his dissertation, "X-ray Examinations of Bismuth Oxifluoride and Mixed Oxides with Trivalent Bismuth", at Stockholm University in 1951. Aurivillius joined the Swedish National Defence Research Institute in 1952, where he worked first as a research engineer and later senior researcher. By 1960, Aurivillius was a docent of physical chemistry and acting senior lecturer at the Stockholm University. In 1965, he was appointed professor of inorganic chemistry at Lund University, a professorship he held until 1983. During the sixties, he worked in the field of crystallography alongside his wife, Karin Aurivillius.