In 1874 he received his doctorate from the University of Breslau, then worked as an assistant to Gerhard vom Rath at the University of Bonn. After several years spent as a curator at the mineralogical museum of the University of Berlin, he became an associate professor of mineralogy at Breslau (1880). Afterwards he successively served as a full professor of mineralogy at the universities of Greifswald (1883/84), Königsberg (from 1884), Göttingen (1887–1909) and Berlin (1909–22). He was an editor of the periodical "Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie".^[1][2]

His name is associated with "Liebisch twinning", a complex type of crystal twinning that is a combination of the Dauphiné and Brazil twinning laws.^[3]

• Geometrische krystallographie, 1881 – Geometric crystallography.
• Physikalische krystallographie, 1891 – Physical crystallography.
• Grundriss der physikalischen Krystallographie, 1896 – Outline of physical crystallography.
• Die synthese der mineralien und gesteine, 1901 – The synthesis of minerals and rocks.^[4]