Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp.

Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

Kenta Shingu

Yusuke Watanabe

Daisuke Tano

Daisuke Haruyama

Yoshiteru Yamada

Hiroaki Ogawa

Akihiko Nakamura

Satoya Sugiura

Hiroshi Tamemasa

Yuka Kawamoto

Masaru Agatsuma

Wataru Yamada

Minoru Rokutan

Toshiyasu Yukawa

Keisuke Kusano

Takeshi Iwanaga

Masahiro Iwasaki

Yoshiro Yamashita

Tomoko Suzuki

Hirohito Yoneyama

Taketoshi Hoshizaki

Makoto Ochiai

Hideaki Ohara

Shogo Hayashi

Jiro Korenaga

Akihiro Kawasaki

Yukimi Kawabata

Yasuki Tanaka

Shinya Yamamoto

Yuto Okazaki

Yukiko Kamijo

Yoshifumi Shoji

Junko Yamasaki

Kohei Hashimoto

Sayaka Inoue

Shiori Okuda

Tsubasa Yamauchi

Keiko Matsuki

An endless belt includes a base material layer, the base material layer containing a polymer material and conductive particles, wherein in a section of the base material layer in a thickness direction, the conductive particles have an area ratio of 9.0% or more and 14.5% or less, an average value of areas of Delaunay triangles taking centers of gravity of the conductive particles as vertices is 0.10 μmor more and 0.90 μmor less, and a standard deviation of the areas is 0.010 μmor more and 0.080 μmor less.

Endless belt, belt unit, and 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

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

An image forming apparatus includes a photoconductor, a charging section that charges a surface of the photoconductor, an electrostatic charge image forming section that forms an electrostatic charge image on the charged surface of the photoconductor, a developing section that accommodates a developer containing a toner and develops the electrostatic charge image formed on the surface of the photoconductor by using the developer to form a toner image, a transfer section that includes an endless belt and transfers the toner image to a recording medium; and a cleaning section that includes a cleaning blade that comes into contact with a surface of the endless belt and performs cleaning of the surface of the endless belt with the cleaning blade, in which a dynamic friction coefficient μ between the endless belt and the cleaning blade is 0.10 or more and 0.25 or less, and the endless belt has an outer peripheral surface on which an uncharged toner is scattered by a wind force of wind pressure of 23 kPa or smaller at a temperature of 22° C. and relative humidity of 55%.

Image forming apparatus and transfer unit

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 fixing belt, in which, in a measurement of a Fourier transform power spectrum of a surface profile of an inner peripheral surface of the fixing belt, a ratio of an average of a power spectral density at a wavelength of 2 μm or more and 6 μm or less to an average of a power spectral density at a wavelength of 10 μm or more and 50 μm or less is 0.82 or more and 0.92 or less.

Fixing belt, fixing device, and image forming apparatus

An endless belt includes a base material layer containing a polymer material and conductive particles, wherein, in an image obtained by observing a cross section taken along a thickness direction of the base material layer with an atomic force microscope, a proportion of a total area Ap of cross sections of all the conductive particles is 9.0% or more and 14.5% or less with respect to a total cross-sectional area At of the base material layer, and a proportion of a total area Ab of cross sections of conductive particles having an area of 0.01 &#x3bc;mor more among cross sections of the conductive particles is 28.0% or more and 65.0% or less with respect to the total area Ap of cross sections of all the conductive particles.

An electrophotographic photosensitive member includes a conductive support and a photosensitive layer disposed on the conductive support. A top surface layer of the electrophotographic photosensitive member includes fluorine-containing resin particles, a fluorine-containing dispersant, and two or more charge transporting materials. When the charge transporting materials are listed in order of decreasing HOMO energy levels, a difference in HOMO energy level between each adjacent two of the charge The ratio A of the amount of each of the charge transporting materials to the total amount of the charge transporting materials satisfies the condition 1 below,[(100/)&#x2212;(100/&#xd7;0.3)]&#x2264;&#x2264;[(100/)+(100/&#xd7;0.3)]&#x2003;&#x2003;Condition 1

Electrophotographic photosensitive member, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

An electrophotographic photoreceptor includes: a conductive base body and a photosensitive layer, in which an outermost surface layer of the electrophotographic photoreceptor contains fluorine-containing resin particles, and in which a fluorine atom concentration at a surface of the outermost surface layer is 1.5 to 5.0 times a fluorine atom concentration at a depth of 1 &#x3bc;m from the surface of the outermost surface layer, or in which a number density ratio of aggregates of the fluorine-containing resin particles in a second region defined in this specification, to aggregates of he fluorine-containing resin particles in a first region defined in this specification is less than 0.95, and a ratio of an area ratio of the fluorine-containing resin particles in the second region, to an area ratio of the flourine-containing resin particles in the first region is within a range of 1&#xb1;0.1.

Electrophotographic photoreceptor, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A tubular metal body includes a tubular part having an opening at one end in an axis direction; and a bottom part disposed at another end of the tubular part in the axis direction. The ratio (Rz1/Rz2) of a surface roughness Rz1 of an outer peripheral surface of the bottom part to a surface roughness Rz2 of an outer peripheral surface of a center portion of the tubular part in the axis direction is in a range of 2 or more and 4000 or less. A Vickers hardness HV1 of the outer peripheral surface of the bottom part is 5 HV or more and 27 HV or less smaller than a Vickers hardness HV2 of the outer peripheral surface of the center portion of the tubular part in the axis direction.

Tubular metal body and electrophotographic photoreceptor

A support for dip coating, wherein the inner peripheral surface at an end in the axial direction of the support has an arithmetic average roughness Ra of 0.26 &#x3bc;m or less and a maximum height roughness Rz of 2.3 &#x3bc;m or less.

Support for dip coating, electrophotographic photoreceptor, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A conductive roller includes a supporting member and a conductive elastic foam layer disposed on the supporting member. In a spectrum of amplitude (&#x3bc;m) vs. period (&#x3bc;m) obtained by subjecting a roughness waveform of the outer circumferential surface of the conductive elastic foam layer in an axial direction to fast Fourier transformation, the integrated value St of the amplitude within a period range of 100 &#x3bc;m or more and 300 &#x3bc;m or less is 455 &#x3bc;m or less.

Conductive roller, transfer device, process cartridge, image forming apparatus, and method for producing conductive roller

A metallic ingot for impact pressing includes a contact surface of the metallic ingot to contact a male mold in impact pressing having a maximum height roughness Rz of 20 &#x3bc;m to 50 &#x3bc;m and an average length of a roughness curve element RSm of 150 &#x3bc;m to 400 &#x3bc;m, the male mold being to be used in combination with a female mold in the impact pressing.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Kenta Shingu