The son of the Saxon merchant August Schlippe and his wife Sofia, née Fischer, was born on November 22, 1798, in the German town of Pegau.

After graduating from the University of Berlin, Schlippe worked in Warsaw from 1824, and in 1826 he moved to Moscow. Eleven years later, he obtained Russian citizenship. In 1840, he discovered large deposits of coal and sulfur pyrite in the Kaluga province. Schlippe invented a substance that replaced saltpeter for gunpowder production, which was successfully used during the Crimean War and became known as 'Schlippe salt.'

For his contributions, he was awarded the rank of Privy Councillor and became a member of the Imperial Moscow Society of Agriculture, as well as the Moscow Manufacturing Council. In 1839, he was awarded the Order of Saint Stanislaus of the 3rd class for his contributions to the development of the sugar industry, and in 1854, the Order of Saint Anna of the 3rd class. In 1844, his family was granted Russian hereditary nobility. Schlippe passed away in July 1867 while receiving treatment in Bad Sodernheim and was buried in Heidelberg.

In 1829, he married Agnes Andre in Moscow, known as Agnesa Fyodorovna Schlippe, born in 1808 in Tarandte and died in 1873 in Plesen. They had eight children, but three sons and five daughters died in infancy.