ICI Boon's scientific career is thoroughly described in the Royal Society Memoir. The highlights of his time at
ICI are: • In 1936 Boon was one of 6 PhDs in the Dyestuffs Division of ICI. His first job was to explore variations of
Nikethamide which are less toxic. Some were found but the project was dropped. He then successfully studied how to scale up production of
Mepacrine. • In 1942 he took charge of a section concerned with the production, purification and structure of
penicillin. Successful collaboration with Pfizer and other firms was achieved. In addition, much purer penicillin was produced by chromatography. • Alongside observations made at ICI's
Jealott's Hill research station, as many quaternary ammonium compounds as possible from the Dyestuffs collection were tested for herbicidal activity. One them (now known as
diquat) was very successful. Further research on related compounds revealed a second dipyridilium herbicide, which was given the name
paraquat. And through Boon's efforts ICI (now
Zeneca) was persuaded to scale up its production, which proved no easy task.
Awards He was awarded the
Mullard Award of the
Royal Society in 1972 and was made a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974. He was also a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a
Fellow of King's College London. ==Private life==