Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Kumiko Hatakeyama

Toshiyuki Kabata

Masahide Yamashita

Shigekazu Enoki

Yasushi Koichi

Osamu Ariizumi

Koji Suzuki

Hiroshi Nakai

Koichi Kato

Jun Yura

Kunio Hasegawa

Shinya Tanaka

Shinji Kato

Masato Iio

Wakako Murakami

Tsutomu Hayashi

An image bearing member including an electroconductive substrate, a photosensitive layer provided overlying the electroconductive substrate, an optional layer overlying the photosensitive layer, and boron nitride attached to at least part of the surface of an outermost layer.

Image bearing member to which boron nitride is attached

An image forming apparatus, including an image bearer; and a protectant applicator applying a protectant including zinc stearate and zinc palmitate to the surface thereof, wherein an average amount of the protectant adhering thereto is from 0.4 to 2.0 &#x3bc;g/cmafter 500 images are produced, and wherein the following relationships are satisfied:wherein X represents an index of the amount of the protectant adhering at an arbitrary point thereon; Sa represents a peak area in a wavenumber domain of from 1,765 to 1,786 cmin an infrared absorption spectrum; and Sb represents a peak area in a wavenumber domain of from 1,533 to 1,547 cm, and&#x394;ave&#x3c;wherein Xi represent the indices X at n-pieces of the arbitrary points in an image forming area thereof along its longitudinal direction; Xave represents an average of the n-pieces of Xi; and &#x394;Xi represents a variation of Xi.

Image forming apparatus, protectant applicator and process cartridge

An image forming apparatus including an image bearing member that bears a latent image and has a surface layer; a charging device that charges the surface of the image bearing member: a latent image forming device that forms the latent image on the surface of the image bearing member; a development device that develops the latent image formed on the surface of the image bearing member with a development agent to form a toner image thereon; a transfer device that transfers the toner image to a transfer medium; a cleaning device that removes residual toner remaining on the surface of the image bearing member after transferring the toner image to the transfer medium; and a protection agent supplying device that supplies a protection agent to the surface layer of the image bearing member that forms a protection layer thereon, wherein the protection agent comprises a metal soap and boron nitride and the amount of the boron nitride in the protection layer applied to the image bearing member after image formation is 0.3 &#x3bc;g/cmor less.

Image forming apparatus, protective agent and process cartridge

A protective layer setting unit includes a protective agent, and an application unit for applying the protective agent on an image carrying member. An attenuated total reflection (ATR) method is used for detecting a surface condition of the image carrying member after applying the protective agent. A peak Pa at a given wavenumber, attributed to the image carrying member, has a peak area Sa in an infrared spectrum observed after applying the protective agent. A peak Pb at a given wavenumber, attributed to the protective agent, has a peak area Sb in the infrared spectrum observed after applying the protective agent. A peak area ratio of Sb/Sa is used for evaluating the protective layer setting unit. The protective layer setting unit is accepted when the Sb/Sa is set to a given range after applying the protective agent to the image carrying member for a given time period.

Protective layer setting unit, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus, and method of evaluating protective layer setting unit

In an image forming apparatus, a photoconductor and a charge roller are in contact with each other and configured to rotate together at linear velocity v (millimeters/second). In this structure, a DC voltage is applied to the photoconductor and the charge roller while they are not rotating. In this state, parameters such as voltage, linear velocity, pressure contact force between the photoconductor and the charge roller are selected so that the ratio w/v (seconds), where w is the interval between two discharge marks occurring on surface of photoconductor, is between 0.005 to 0.035.

Image forming apparatus and process cartridge

A protective material block including a metal soap, wherein the surface of the protective material block has an X-ray diffraction pattern wherein a ratio (P/P) of a maximum peak height (P) on a surface separation of from 3.6 to 5.0 &#x212b; to a maximum peak height (P) on a surface separation of from 11 to 16 &#x212b; not greater than 0.5.

Protective material and image forming apparatus using the protective material

The present invention provides a lubricant coater including an applying member for applying a lubricant powder on a surface of an image bearing member, wherein the lubricant powder contains paraffin as a main component, and the lubricant coatability of the applying member is controlled such that a maximum thickness of a lubricant film formed on the image bearing member, which is obtained after the lubricant powder is continuously applied on the surface of the image bearing member for 120 minutes, is 0.25 &#x3bc;m or less.

Lubricant coater, image bearing unit, and image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus including an image bearing member that bears a latent electrostatic image on the surface thereof, a charging device that uniformly charges the surface of the image bearing member, an irradiation device that irradiates the surface of the image bearing member to form the latent electrostatic image thereon, a development device that develops the latent electrostatic image on the surface of the image bearing member with toner to form a toner image thereon, a transfer device that transfers the toner image to a transfer body, a cleaning device including a cleaning blade that removes residual toner remaining on the surface of the image bearing member with the cleaning blade, a protective agent application device that applies a protective agent containing zinc stearate and zinc palmitate to the surface of the image bearing member, wherein the ratio of the zinc stearate and the zinc palmitate is from 66:34 to 40:60 by weight.

Image forming apparatus and protective agent block

A transfer residual toner that has not been electrostatically transferred onto a transfer paper P at a transfer nip and remains on a surface of a photosensitive element is temporarily retained by an elastic blade of a toner retaining unit in a mechanical manner before reaching a latent image forming area. When passing through the latent image forming area, the transfer residual toner is returned onto the surface of the photosensitive member at such a timing that writing is not performed by an exposing unit on the surface of the photosensitive element.

Image forming apparatus, process cartridge, cleaning system, and image forming apparatus with cleaning system

A protective-agent applying device that applies a protective agent mainly containing paraffin to a photosensitive element. The protective-agent applying device applies a protective agent to a surface of the photosensitive element in such a manner that when applying the protective agent for 10 minutes, the protective agent equal to or more than 0.5 &#x3bc;g/cmadheres to the surface, and when applying the protective agent for 60 minutes, the protective agent equal to or less than 8 &#x3bc;g/cmadheres to the surface.

Protective-agent applying device, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A process cartridge includes a protective agent, a photoconductor, a charging unit, a development unit, a cleaning unit, and an application unit. The protective agent includes paraffin as main component. The photoconductor has a surface including polycarbonate applied with the protective agent. The development unit develops a latent image on the photoconductor. The cleaning unit removes materials remaining on the photoconductor. The application unit applies the protective agent to the surface of photoconductor. One peak in a given binding energy range is used to determine a coating condition of the photoconductor coated by the agent. The coating condition is determined by comparing an area ratio Abefore applying the agent and an area ratio A after applying the agent, each of which is an area ratio with respect to a total area of C1s spectrum of the photoconductor. The coating ratio of the photoconductor is computed by (A&#x2212;A)/A&#xd7;100.

Process cartridge including photoconductor pre-coated with protective agent and image forming apparatus using same

A protective layer setting unit includes a protective agent and an application unit configured to apply the protective agent to an image carrying member in a manner sufficient to satisfy equations (1) and (2). A surface condition of the image carrying member is determined by an applied-agent amount index 'X' and an agent coating ratio 'Y,' and a ratio of &#x201c;X/Y&#x201d; is set to 0.020 or less after applying the protective agent for 120 minutes.applied-agent amount index&#x2003;&#x2003;(1)agent coating ratio=()/&#xd7;100(%)&#x2003;&#x2003;(2).

Protective layer setting unit, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus using same

An image forming apparatus includes a charger, a developing device, a cleaning device, a protective-agent bar, and a brush. The charger uniformly charges an image carrier. The developing device develops an electrostatic latent image formed on the image carrier to obtain a toner image as a visual image. The cleaning device removes toner remaining on the surface of the image carrier from which the toner image has been transferred onto a transfer material. The protective-agent bar contains a protective agent. The brush comes in contact with the protective-agent bar and the image carrier while rotating such that the protective agent adheres thereto and is supplied to the image carrier in an irregular form.

Image forming apparatus with protective agent applying unit and process cartridge

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a developing unit, a concentration sensor, a toner supplying unit, a developer supplying unit, an ejector, and a condition detector. The image carrier forms a latent image thereon. The developing unit develops the latent image formed on the image carrier with a two-component image developer including toner particles and carrier particles. The concentration sensor detects a toner ratio in the developing unit. The toner supplying unit supplies fresh toner particles to the developing unit. The developer supplying unit supplies fresh image developer to the developing unit. The ejector ejects the image developer to an outside of the developing unit. The condition detector detects a condition of the image developer used for an image forming operation to determine a supply amount of the image developer to supply to the developing unit. The condition includes a degradation level of the image developer.

Image forming apparatus including controller to detect condition of image developer

A charge member that can reduce charge irregularities of a member to be charged caused by variations in the gap between the member to be charged and the charge member even when using a member to be charged (photosensitive member, and the like) that has circumferential fluctuations. The charge member which is arranged electrically without making contact with the member to be charged, and which charges the member to be charged by applying AC voltage superimposed on DC voltage, and which is formed of a rotatable roller, is arranged electrically without making contact with the member to be charged having circumferential fluctuations of 4 to 80 &#x3bc;m within the image formation area, and which has a plurality of stage differences with a height difference of 2 to 30 &#x3bc;m on the surface of the roller; and the stage differences in the area opposing the member to be charged are five to thirty in relation to a distance of 0.5 mm in the circumferential direction of the roller. Charging without charge irregularities is thereby possible.

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Sagamihara, Japan

Kumiko Hatakeyama