Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp.

Daisuke Tano

Masato Ono

Kei Tanaka

Noriaki Kojima

Yu Nakamura

Tsutomu Sugimoto

Kenta Shingu

Yoshinori Takahashi

Yuka Kawamoto

Yoshiteru Yamada

Yusuke Watanabe

Masayuki Seko

Shintaro Kikuchi

Yuko Kawase

Hiroaki Tanaka

Yoshiro Yamashita

Daisuke Tanaka

Koichi Matsumoto

Masato Furukawa

Satoya Sugiura

Shigeru Fukuda

Daisuke Tanemura

Shogo Hayashi

Shota Oshima

Hiroaki Akamatsu

Tomoo Matsushima

Yosuke Tsutsumi

An image forming apparatus includes an electrostatic image developer including a toner including toner particles, the toner particles including a release agent, an amount of the release agent present in a region that extends 800 nm below surfaces of the toner particles being 70% or more of the total amount of the release agent included in the toner particles, the release agent having a melting temperature of 65° C. or more and 80° C. or less; a member that is to be cleaned; and a cleaning blade arranged to come into contact with an outer peripheral surface of the member, the cleaning blade being capable of removing the toner adhered on a surface of the member, the cleaning blade including a contact portion arranged to come into contact with the member, the contact portion including a polyurethane, the contact portion having a hardness of 85° or more and 95° or less and a plastic deformation power of 12% or less, a Si content at a surface of the contact portion being 15 atm % or more.

Image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes an image holder; a charging unit that charges a surface of the image holder; an electrostatic charge image forming unit that forms an electrostatic charge image on the charged surface of the image holder; a developing unit that accommodates an electrostatic charge image developer containing a toner having toner particles and that develops an electrostatic charge image formed on the surface of the image holder as a toner image by the electrostatic charge image developer, in which a release agent present in a region within 800 nm from a surface of the toner particles is 70% or more of a release agent in entire toner particles and a melting temperature of the release agent is 65° C. or higher and 80° C. or lower; a transfer unit that transfers the toner image formed on the surface of the image holder to a surface of a recording medium; and a cleaning device having a cleaning blade that is brought into contact with and cleans an outer peripheral surface of the image holder and that is constituted of a polyurethane resin, in which a total amount of F and Si present within 200 nm from a surface of the cleaning blade, which is brought into contact with the image holder accounts for 75% or more of a total amount of F and Si present within 5 μm from the surface.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

A belt cleaning blade has a contact part that is brought into contact with at least a surface of a belt which is a member to be cleaned, in which the contact part is configured of polyurethane rubber containing a hard segment and a soft segment, and in a surface of the contact part, a proportion Hoccupied by domains of the hard segment is 15.2% or more and 26.1% or less, and a proportion Hoccupied by an area of the domains of the hard segment having an area of 200 nmor more and 1,000 nmor less to a total area of the domains of the hard segment in the surface is 38.9% or more and 60.8% or less.

Belt cleaning blade, image forming apparatus, and transfer device

An image forming apparatus includes an image holder; a charging unit that charges a surface of the image holder; an electrostatic charge image forming unit that forms an electrostatic charge image on the charged surface of the image holder; a developing unit that accommodates an electrostatic charge image developer containing a toner having toner particles and that develops an electrostatic charge image formed on the surface of the image holder as a toner image by the electrostatic charge image developer, in which a release agent present in a region within 800 nm from a surface of the toner particles is 70% or more of a release agent in entire toner particles and a melting temperature of the release agent is 65° C. or higher and 80° C. or lower; a transfer unit that has a transfer opposing belt which comes into contact with a surface of the recording medium on an opposite side to a surface to which the toner image is transferred and that transfers the toner image formed on the surface of the image holder to the surface of the recording medium; and a cleaning device having a cleaning blade that is brought into contact with and cleans an outer peripheral surface of the transfer opposing belt, that is constituted of a polyurethane resin, and that has an indentation elastic modulus of 15 MPa or more and 35 MPa or less on a surface which is brought into contact with the transfer opposing belt, in which a total amount of F and Si present within 200 nm from the surface which is brought into contact with the transfer opposing belt accounts for 75% or more of a total amount of F and Si present within 5 μm from the surface.

An image forming apparatus includes an image holder; a charging unit that charges a surface of the image holder; an electrostatic charge image forming unit that forms an electrostatic charge image on the charged surface of the image holder; a developing unit that accommodates an electrostatic charge image developer containing a toner having toner particles and that develops an electrostatic charge image formed on the surface of the image holder as a toner image by the electrostatic charge image developer, in which a release agent present in a region within 800 nm from a surface of the toner particles is 70% or more of a release agent in entire toner particles and a melting temperature of the release agent is 65° C. or higher and 80° C. or lower; an intermediate transfer belt that has an outer peripheral surface to which the toner image is to be transferred; a primary transfer unit that has a primary transfer member performing primary transfer of the toner image formed on the surface of the image holder to the outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt; a secondary transfer unit that has a secondary transfer member performing secondary transfer of the toner image transferred to the outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt by the primary transfer to a surface of a recording medium; and a cleaning device having a cleaning blade that is brought into contact with and cleans the outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt and that has a two-layer structure including an edge layer and a back surface layer, in which the edge layer and the back surface layer are constituted of a polyurethane resin, a ratio (Hb/Ha) of a hardness Hb of the edge layer to a hardness Ha of the back surface layer is 0.84 or more and 0.93 or less, and a total amount of F and Si present within 200 nm from the surface of the cleaning blade, which is brought into contact with the intermediate transfer belt of the edge layer, accounts for 75% or more of a total amount of F and Si present within 5 μm from the surface.

A belt cleaning blade has a contact site that comes into contact with at least a surface of a belt which is a member to be cleaned, in which the contact site is configured with polyurethane rubber including hard segments and soft segments, and in a cross section of the contact site, a ratio X of domains of the hard segments to a total area of the cross section is 14.9% or more and 25.1% or less, and a ratio Y of an area of domains of the hard segments having an area of 200 nmor more and 1,000 nmor less to a total area of the domains of the hard segments in the cross section is 17.8% or more and 46.5% or less.

Belt cleaning blade, photoreceptor cleaning blade, image forming apparatus, transfer device, and cleaning device

A cleaning blade in which a Young's modulus of a contact portion that comes into contact with a member to be cleaned is 14 MPa or more and 25 MPa or less, and a tip angle of the contact portion is 55 degrees or more and 80 degrees or less.

Cleaning blade, cleaning device, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A cleaning blade includes a contact part coming into contact with a member to be cleaned, the contact part being constituted by a member containing polyurethane rubber produced by polymerizing at least a polyol component and a polyisocyanate component. The ratio (M100/Re) of 100% modulus (M100 [MPa]) to rebound resilience coefficient (Re [%]) of the member is 0.25 or more. The rebound resilience coefficient (Re [%]) of the member is less than 25%. The tensile stress at 23&#xb0; C. and 200% strain of the member is 15 MPa or more.

A transfer unit includes an intermediate transfer belt including a resin and in which in a spatial distribution of conductive carbon particles that are present in an evaluation region of 6.3 &#x3bc;m&#xd7;4.2 &#x3bc;m on an outer peripheral surface, an integrated value of a statistic L(r) in an interparticle distance r of 0.05 &#x3bc;m or more and 0.30 &#x3bc;m or less is 0 or more and 0.1 or less; and a cleaning component including a cleaning blade which contacts the outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt and in which a value of M100/Re is 0.25 or more and a value of Re is 25 or more where M100 represents a 100% modulus (MPa) of a contact portion of the cleaning blade contacts the intermediate transfer belt, and Re represents a rebound resilience coefficient (%) of the contact portion:():=&#x221a;{square root over (()/&#x3c0;)}&#x2212;&#x2003;&#x2003;(1)  

Transfer unit, transfer device, and image forming apparatus

A cleaning blade includes a contact part coming into contact with a member to be cleaned, the contact part being configurated by a member containing polyurethane rubber produced by polymerizing at least a polyol component, which contains over 50 mol % and 75 mol % or less of 1,4-butanediol relative to the entire polyol components, with a polyisocyanate component. The ratio (M100/Re) of 100% modulus (M100 [MPa]) to rebound resilience coefficient (Re [%]) is 0.25 or more. The rebound resilience coefficient (Re [%]) is 25% or more.

Cleaning blade, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A cleaning blade that contacts a cleaning target member having a cleaning target surface which moves, and cleans the cleaning target surface, includes a blade body; and a blade protrusion that is present at an end portion of a lower surface of the blade body near a distal end surface of the blade body, has a shape protruding outward in a thickness direction with respect to the lower surface, and has an inclined surface being a surface continued from the distal end surface and inclined outward in the thickness direction with respect to the lower surface and inward in a height direction with respect to the distal end surface from an end of the distal end surface near the lower surface. At least a portion of the incline surface is a contact surface that contacts the cleaning target member.

A cleaning blade includes a polyurethane member that constitutes at least a contact portion that comes in contact with a member to be cleaned. The polyurethane member contains a polyurethane containing a hard segment component and a soft segment component. The hard segment component has a domain particle size of about 45 nm or more and about 100 nm or less.

A cleaning blade includes a polyurethane member that contains a polyurethane, the polyurethane member constituting at least a contact portion that comes in contact with a member to be cleaned. An infrared absorption spectrum obtained by infrared spectroscopy of the polyurethane member has a peak intensity ratio (A/B) of about 1.1 or more, where A represents an intensity of a spectral peak due to a carbonyl group that does not form a hydrogen bond, the spectral peak appearing in a range of about 1,730 cmor more and about 1,740 cmor less, and B represents an intensity of a spectral peak due to a carbonyl group that forms a hydrogen bond, the spectral peak appearing in a range of about 1,670 cmor more and about 1,720 cmor less.

A sliding member includes a base material including a contact area which contacts with a member to be slid, wherein a Young's modulus E1 with respect to the thickness of the contact area from a surface of the contact area is from 10 MPa to 200,000 MPa and a thickness T of the contact area is from 10 nm to 500 nm.

Sliding member with a base material for contacting a member to be slid, process cartridge having the sliding member, and image forming apparatus having the sliding member

Disclosed is a cleaning blade of which a contact portion brought into contact with at least a member to be cleaned is formed of a polyurethane member that includes a polyurethane material containing a hard segment and a soft segment and has a ratio of an area occupied by a hard segment aggregate having a diameter of 0.3 &#x3bc;m to 0.7 &#x3bc;m in a cross section being in a range of 2% to 10%.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Daisuke Tano