After graduating from St. Petersburg University, V. G. Khlopin was left at the department of Professor L. A. Chugaev, but while still a student, in 1911 he conducted a workshop on the chemical methods of sanitary analyzes with doctors at the St. Petersburg Clinical Institute, and continued this course of practical training in 1912 and 1913.
From 1917 to 1924, V. G. Khlopin served as an assistant in the department of general chemistry at the university, and from 1924, as an assistant professor, he began teaching a special course on radioactivity and the chemistry of radioelements - the first in the USSR; since brief and incomplete data and summaries existed only in foreign literature, this course was completely developed by V. G. Khlopin, who taught it until 1930, and resumed in 1934 as a professor, teaching it until 1935. In the spring of 1945, the scientist organized and headed the department of radiochemistry at Leningrad University.
Developed by V. G. Khlopin in collaboration with B. A. Nikitin and A. P. Ratner, a course of lectures on radiochemistry formed the basis of an extensive monograph on the chemistry of radioactive substances.
V. G. Khlopin took an active part in the work of the Russian Physical-Chemical Society, and after the latter was transformed into the All-Union Chemical Society, he was a member of the Council of the Leningrad branch of the organization, and later was its chairman.
At the Academy of Sciences, V. G. Khlopin was a member of the Analytical Commission, the Commission on Isotopes, and the Commission for the Development of the Scientific Heritage of D. I. Mendeleev. From 1941 to 1945, V. G. Khlopin, as Deputy Academician-Secretary, did a lot of work in the Department of Chemical Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences. During the Eastern Front (World War II), V. G. Khlopin served as deputy chairman of the Commission for the Mobilization of Resources of the Volga and Kama Region and chairman of its chemical section.
For many years he was a member of the Editorial Council of the Chemical-Technical Publishing House (Khimteoret). The scientist was the executive editor of the journal Uspekhi Khimii and was on the editorial boards of the journals: “Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences”, “Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Department of Chemical Sciences)”, “Journal of General Chemistry” and “Journal of Physical Chemistry”.
Vitaly Grigorievich Khlopin trained students in all the most important areas of scientific activity, many of whom became not only independent scientific researchers, but also the creators of their own scientific directions and schools.