Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Masahiro Ohmori

Yohta Sakon

Masanobu Gondoh

Shohei Gohda

Kaori Toyama

Shinji Nohsho

Yuka Aoyama

Keiichiro Juri

Hiromi Sakaguchi

Hidetaka Kubo

Hideki Kimura

Yuta Nakamura

Yasuyuki Yamashita

Tetsuya Toshine

Yuuki Mizutani

Kazuhiko Watanabe

Hiroshi Nakai

Toshiyuki Kabata

Daisuke Inoue

Satoshi Kojima

Naohiro Toda

Junichi Awamura

Hiroshi Ikuno

Akihiro Sugino

Yoshihiro Moriya

Keisuke Shimoyama

Tomoharu Asano

Mitsuaki Hirose

Hideo Nakamori

Kazuhiro Egawa

Toshihiro Ishida

Takafumi Iwamoto

Takuya Akiyama

Yosuke Suzuki

Akio Takei

Sayaka Katoh

Daichi Hisakuni

Momoko Shionoiri

Noboru Toriu

Takayuki Gotoh

Ichiro Maeda

Takeshi Tada

Toshiki Mori

Naoko Shohji

Kazuma Tokai

Maho Shimokawa

Jun Yamashita

Makoto Watanabe

Yusuke Sasa

A cleaning blade includes an elastic member that includes a front edge surface extending in the longitudinal direction of the elastic member and the thickness direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction and a bottom surface extending in the depth direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction and the thickness direction, the bottom surface sharing a front edge ridge part with the front edge surface and facing a cleaning target, and a coating layer coating the front edge surface, the front edge ridge part, and the bottom surface, wherein the front edge ridge part coated with the coating layer is in contact with a surface of the cleaning target, and the coating layer has an average thickness that increases with an increase in a distance from the front edge ridge part in the thickness direction on the front edge surface.

Cleaning blade, method of manufacturing the same, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

Provided is a cleaning blade including an elastic blade having a strip shape, and a supporting member supporting the elastic blade. The cleaning blade is configured to bring a leading end ridgeline portion of the elastic blade into contact with a cleaning target member that is moving, and remove a residual matter from a surface of the cleaning target member. At least a surface layer portion of the elastic blade including the leading end ridgeline portion is formed of a rubber having a hysteresis loss ratio of 15% or less.

Cleaning blade, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge

A cleaning blade for cleaning a rotating body is provided. The cleaning blade includes: an edge layer having a tip portion that comes into contact with the rotating body; and a coating layer on the tip portion of the edge layer. The coating layer contains a first fluorine-based resin and a second fluorine-based resin incompatible with the first fluorine-based resin. The cleaning blade has a Martens hardness of from 0.5 to 3 N/mmat a position 20 μm distant from a tip edge portion of the edge layer.

Cleaning blade, lubricant leveling blade, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A cleaning blade for an intermediate transfer medium is provided. A cleaning target of the cleaning blade is an intermediate transfer medium. The cleaning blade includes an edge layer and a coating layer. The coating layer provided on a forefront end of the edge layer at which the edge layer contacts the intermediate transfer medium contains a first fluorine-based resin and a second fluorine-based resin incompatible with the first fluorine-based resin. The cleaning blade for an intermediate transfer medium has a Martens hardness of 0.5 N/mmor greater and 3 N/mmor less at a location having a distance of 20 μm from a ridgeline of the forefront end of the edge layer.

Cleaning blade for intermediate transfer medium, and image forming apparatus

A cleaning blade is provided. The cleaning blade includes an elastic body having a contact edge to contact a surface of a cleaning target to remove a residue on the surface. The elastic body includes a coating layer on at least a part of the contact edge. The coating layer contains fluorine-based particles and a binder comprising a fluorine-based oil.

Cleaning blade, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

A cleaning blade includes a blade member including a ridgeline portion. The ridgeline portion contains polyrotaxane. A sheet conveyance roller includes a core and a surface layer. The surface layer contains polyrotaxane.

Cleaning blade, sheet conveyance roller, process cartridge, and image forming apparatus

Provided is an image forming apparatus including an image bearer, a developing unit configured to develop with a toner, an intermediate transfer member, and a transferring unit, wherein the intermediate transfer member is a laminate including a base layer and an elastic layer including particles at a surface thereof to form convex-concave shapes at the surface, the particles have volume resistivity of from 1&#xd7;10ohm*cm through 1&#xd7;10ohm*cm, the toner includes additive, an amount of the additive separated from the toner is from 20 percent by mass through 35 percent by mass relative to a total amount of the additive in the toner when a toner dispersion liquid in which the toner is dispersed in a dispersant is irradiated with ultrasonic wave vibration with an irradiation energy dose of 4 kJ, and the toner has a dielectric constant of 2.6 or greater but 3.9 or less.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An intermediate transfer medium onto which a toner image is transferred is provided. The intermediate transfer medium comprises a base layer and an elastic layer overlying the base layer. The elastic layer contains spherical fine particles to form an irregular surface, and the spherical fine particles have a volume resistivity of 1&#xd7;10&#x3a9;&#xb7;cm or more and less than 1&#xd7;10&#x3a9;&#xb7;cm.

Intermediate transfer medium and image forming apparatus

An intermediate transfer belt is provided onto which a toner image obtained by developing a latent image formed on an image bearer with a toner is transferred. The intermediate transfer belt includes a base layer and an elastic layer laminated on the base layer. The elastic layer includes an ether-based urethane rubber and particles. The elastic layer has a flame retardancy of vertical thin material (VTM)-1 or higher in UL94-VTM test, and the intermediate transfer belt has a Martens hardness of 0.3 to 0.6 N/mmand an elastic power of 60% to 85%.

Intermediate transfer belt, image forming apparatus, and image forming method

A cleaning blade includes a support and an elastic member with a flat shape. The elastic member has a secured end secured to the support and a free end. A ridgeline of the free end contacts a cleaning target to remove substances adhering to a surface of the cleaning target. The elastic member includes a base and a surface layer made of a cured product of a curable composition. The surface layer is disposed on at least a part of an opposite face disposed to oppose a downstream side of the cleaning target downstream from a contact portion of the elastic member with the cleaning target in a direction of movement of the cleaning target. A thickness of the surface layer progressively decreases toward the secured end along a cross section perpendicular to a longitudinal direction of the surface layer.

A cleaning blade including an elastic member configured to be in contact with a surface of a cleaning-target member to remove deposited matter deposited on the surface of the cleaning-target in member, wherein the elastic member includes a base and a surface layer formed of a cured product of a curable composition, the surface layer is formed on at least part of a bottom surface of the base including a contact part to be in contact with the cleaning-target member, where the bottom surface of the base is a surface of the base facing a downstream side along a traveling direction of the cleaning-target member relative to the contact part, and an average film thickness of the surface layer at the contact part is 10 &#x3bc;m or greater but 100 &#x3bc;m or less.

A method for producing a cleaning blade including at least a strip-shaped elastic blade, the method including: (1) a step of producing an elastic blade preform formed of a polyurethane rubber; (2) a step of impregnating at least a part, which is to contact an image bearer, of the elastic blade preform with an ultraviolet-curable composition including a (meth)acrylate compound; (3) a step of immersing the part impregnated of the elastic blade preform in a washing solvent to remove the ultraviolet-curable composition including the (meth)acrylate compound remaining on a surface of the impregnated part; and (4) a step of curing the ultraviolet-curable composition including the (meth)acrylate compound that has impregnated the elastic blade preform to produce an elastic blade.

Method for manufacturing cleaning blade, cleaning blade, image formation device, and process cartridge

A cleaning blade includes an elastic member including a contact portion to contact the surface of a member to be cleaned and remove an extraneous matter adhering to the surface of the member. The contact portion includes a modified portion including at least one of an impregnated portion including a first cured material formed of a first curing composition in a thickness direction from the surface of the contact portion; and a surface layer formed of a second curing composition on the surface of the contact portion. The surface of the modified portion has a tack maximum value not greater than 3.0 [gf/mm].

Cleaning blade including modified portion including impregnated portion and surface layer, and process cartridge and image forming apparatus including the cleaning blade

Provided is a cleaning blade including an elastic member configured to abut on a surface of a cleaning target member and remove residual material deposited thereon, wherein elastic member satisfies requirements a to c below,

Cleaning blade with elastic member including reformed layer, image forming apparatus, and process cartridge with the same

An image forming apparatus is provided which includes an image bearer, a charger to charge the image bearer, a latent image forming device to form an electrostatic latent image on the image bearer, a developing device to develop the electrostatic latent image with a toner, a transfer device to transfer the toner image onto a transfer medium, and a cleaning blade to remove residual toner particles remaining on the image bearer. The toner includes a binder resin and a release agent. The release agent has a longest length Lmax in the toner, which is equal to or greater than 1.1 times a maximum Feret diameter Df of the toner. The cleaning blade includes a strip-like elastic body blade having a contact part with the image bearer. The contact part includes a cured product of an ultraviolet curable composition including an acrylate or methacrylate compound having an alicyclic structure.

Image forming apparatus and process cartridge

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Kanagawa, Japan

Masahiro Ohmori