After taking his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Göttingen (1830), Bunsen taught at the universities of Marburg and Breslau and elsewhere. As professor at Heidelberg (1852–99), he built up an excellent school of chemistry. Never married, he lived for his students, with whom he was very popular, and his laboratory. He chiefly concerned himself with experimental and analytical work.

He found an antidote to arsenic poisoning in freshly precipitated, hydrated ferric oxide (1834). In 1837 he began his only notable venture into organic chemistry with a study of the highly toxic, arsenic-containing compound cacodyl. During six years of work with it, he lost the sight in one eye from an explosion and nearly killed himself from arsenic poisoning. His research led to profitable studies of organometallic compounds by his student Edward Frankland. Eventually, Bunsen barred organic research in his laboratory.

Bunsen's studies of the composition of gases given off from blast furnaces showed that 50 to 80 percent or more of the heat was wasted and led to elaboration of his methods of measuring volumes of gases in his only publication, Gasometrische Methoden (1857).

In 1841 he invented the carbon-zinc electric cell known by his name. To measure the light produced by it, he developed the grease-spot photometer (1844). He was the first to obtain magnesium in the metallic state and study its physical and chemical properties, demonstrating the brilliance and reaction-producing (actinic) qualities of the flame when magnesium is burned in air.

Bunsen also invented the filter pump (1868), the ice calorimeter (1870), and the vapour calorimeter (1887). Though he is generally credited with the invention of the Bunsen burner, he seems to have contributed to its development only in a minor way.