Patent ID: 7387979

Claim:
A method for producing a magnesium compound, comprising reacting metallic magnesium having a sphericity (S) of less than 2.50, the sphericity (S) being represented by the following formula (I), an alcohol, and a halogen and/or a halogen-containing compound containing halogen atoms in an amount of 0.0001 gram atom or more relative to one gram atom of the metallic magnesium, S =( L 1 /L 2 ) 3 (I) wherein L 1 represents a maximum diameter of projection views of metallic magnesium determined by imaging metallic magnesium with a scanning electron microscope, and L 2 represents the diameter of a circle having an area equal to the area of the projection view of metallic magnesium having said maximum diameter L 1 ; wherein the magnesium compound has a sphericity (S′) of less than 1.30, the sphericity (S′) being represented by the following formula (III), S ′=( L 3 /L 4 ) 3 (III) wherein L 3 represents a maximum diameter of projection views of the magnesium compound determined by imaging the magnesium compound with a scanning electron microscope, and L 4 represents the diameter of a circle having an area equal to the area of the projection view of the magnesium compound having said maximum diameter L 3 .