After Alfi Khatib obtained his Bsc degree from Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia, he was awarded the TALIS scholarship by the Dutch government for his Master and Ph.D programmes in Pharmacognosy in Leiden University, the Netherlands. Upon completion of his Ph.D in 2006, he joined Metabolomics Section in Leiden University as a postdoctoral researcher until August 2008. He moved to Universiti Putra Malaysia as a senior lecturer in September 2008 before joining the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Kulliyyah of Pharmacy, International Islamic University Malaysia as an Associate Professor in April 2013.
He was the winner of the Dutch New Venture Competition Round 2 in 2006 based on his Ph.D work on iso-alpha-acids purification. He was awarded the Excellent Achievement Award by University Putra Malaysia for three consecutive years 2009, 2010 and 2011. He won a gold medal for his invention on FTIR-ATR Spectroscopy based metabolite fingerprinting as a direct determination of butter adulerated with lard at Pameran Reka Cipta, Penyelidikan dan Inovasi Malaysia UPM in 2012.
Another gold medal was awarded to him based on his invention Analysis of Butter Adulterated with Lard by 1H-NMR for Halal Verification during Research Invention, Innovation and Design UiTM in 2012. His research interest is in natural product chemistry. He has received several research grants from the Malaysian government for his research on the standardization of natural products using metabolomics approach and purification of bioactive compounds from Malaysian plants. He has published more than 90 articles in peer reviewed international journals and one international patent.