Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Hiroshi Yamasita

Jun Okamoto

Hiroyuki Fushimi

Takeyoshi Sekine

Yasunori Kawaishi

Makoto Ohsaki

Kouta Fujimdri

Masami Tomita

Shigeru Emoto

Tsunemi Sugiyama

A dry toner for developing an electrostatic image, including a toner binder containing a urea-modified polyester. The toner has a volume average particle diameter Dv of 3 to 10 &mgr;m and a number average particle diameter Dp such that the ratio Dv/Dp of the volume average particle diameter to the number average particle diameter ranges from 1.05 to 1.25.

Dry toner

The current methods and systems for cleaning residual ultra-fine spherical toner from an image forming surface discloses the application of aspherical toner to a cleaning blade. The aspherical toner is generally larger than the ultra-fine spherical toner which provides a superior image on an image-carrying medium. According to one preferred embodiment of the current invention, the aspherical black toner is placed in a predetermined area outside of a desired image area where the ultra-fine spherical toner in multiple colors is placed. The aspherical toner is transported to the cleaning blade before the multi-color toner reaches the cleaning blade. Since the aspherical toner applied at a contacting edge of the cleaning blade provide an effective seal or trap between the cleaning blade and the image forming surface, the ultra-fine spherical toner is effectively removed from the image forming surface.

Methods and systems for cleaning residual toner from image developing

Methods and systems for cleaning residual toner from image-developing

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Numazu, Japan

Hiroshi Yamasita