 While in the secondary school in Viborg, Hugo Zilliacus, the teacher of arithmetic and science, cemented Komppa's interest in scientific research.Komppa furnished his own chemistry laboratory in the carriage shed of his parents' house after the instructions in Julius Adolph Stöckhard's book Schule der Chemie.He graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology in 1891 and subsequently worked for a while in Switzerland with Arthur Hantzsch before obtaining his Ph.D.