Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Masato Igarashi

Toshiyuki Kawanishi

Kiyofumi Nagai

Masayuki Koyano

Akio Kojima

Takanori Tsuyuki

Hiroyuki Mochizuki

Akiko Konishi

Ikuko Tanaka

Eiichi Kawamura

Akiko Bannai

Kunichika Morohoshi

Ikuko Yamada

Koichi Suzuki

Hiroshi Yamashita

Takashi Mori

Shigeru Fujita

Katsuaki Miyawaki

Noriyoshi Tarumi

Makoto Obu

Kakuji Murakami

Tomoaki Sugawara

Shinichi Kuramoto

Masaru Shinkai

Narihito Kojima

Masatoshi Saito

Kiyoshi Tanikawa

Kumi Hasegawa

Tadashi Saitoh

Hisao Watanabe

Kohsuke Suzuki

Nobutaka Kinoshita

Tooru Maruyama

Shigeaki Kimura

Taro Terashi

Takeo Wada

Iwao Takahashi

Hiroshi Kitazawa

An image recording method for forming an image on a recording material includes the steps of (a) applying to a recording material a colorless or light colored image recording acceleration liquid containing a compound which is capable of making insoluble a coloring agent contained in a recording liquid which comprises the coloring agent and a solvent for dispersing or dissolving the coloring agent, and (b) depositing the recording liquid imagewise on the recording material by ejecting the recording liquid in the form of droplets onto the recording material, the image recording acceleration liquid further containing at least one of surfactants represented by any of formulae (1) to (5) as specified in the specification, and an image formation apparatus for carrying out the above image formation method is provided.

Image recording method image recording apparatus and image recording acceleration liquid

An electrophotographic toner including a colorant and a binder resin including at least a styrene resin, wherein the toner further includes one or more styrene oligomers in an amount not greater than 100 ppm. An electrophotographic image forming method is also disclosed in which an electrostatic latent image formed on an image bearing member is developed with the toner.

Electrophotographic toner and image forming method using the toner

An aqueous ink composition contains a colorant and a humectant, and has a surface tension &ggr; of less than 50 mN/m when measured by a maximum bubble pressure method at 25&deg; C., with a bubble frequency &ngr; of the aqueous ink composition being set at less than 1 Hz, and a surface tension &ggr; of more than 40 mN/m when measured by the maximum bubble pressure method at 25&deg; C., with the bubble frequency &ngr; of the aqueous ink composition being set at more than 5 Hz. In addition, an ink-jet printing method for forming ink images on an image-receiving medium has the step of ejecting the above-mentioned aqueous ink composition in the form of droplets according to the recording signals at a recording frequency of 8 kHz or more.

Aqueous ink compositions and ink-jet printing method using the same

A set of color ink compositions for ink-jet printing includes yellow, magenta and cyan ink composition, each of which having water, a water-soluble coloring agent, a wetting agent, a surfactant and an antiseptic and mildewproofing agent, and the yellow ink composition has the lightness index L* of 95.+-.5 and the chromaticness indices a* and b* of respectively -6.+-.5 and 23 .+-.12, the magenta ink composition has the lightness index L* of 75.+-.5 and the chromaticness indices a* and b* of respectively 55.+-.25 and -28.+-.10, and the cyan ink composition has the lightness index L* of 87.+-.5 and the chromaticness indices a* and b* of respectively -35.+-.10 and -19.+-.8. Further, color ink images are formed on a recording material with a Stockigt sizing degree of 10 sec or more using the above set of color ink compositions and a printing head with a plurality of ink-ejecting orifices by performing dot printing on the recording material by ejecting the ink compositions from the ink-ejecting orifices with the printing head scanned over the recording material a plurality of times.

Set of color ink compositions for ink-jet printing and method of forming

An image recording method for forming an image on a recording material, using a recording liquid which contains a coloring agent and a solvent in which the coloring agent is dispersed or dissolved, includes the steps of applying to a recording material a colorless or light colored image recording acceleration liquid containing a surfactant and a viscosity-increasing compound capable of increasing the viscosity of the recording liquid, and depositing the recording liquid imagewise on the recording material by ejecting the recording liquid in the form of droplets onto the recording material, and an image recording apparatus for carrying out the above image recording method is provided.

Image recording method, image recording apparatus and image recording

An aqueous ink composition contains a colorant and a humectant, and has a surface tension .gamma. of less than 50 mN/m when measured by a maximum bubble pressure method at 25.degree. C., with a bubble frequency .nu. of the aqueous ink composition being set at less than 1 Hz, and a surface tension .gamma. of more than 40 mN/m when measured by the maximum bubble pressure method at 25.degree. C., with the bubble frequency .nu. of the aqueous ink composition being set at more than 5 Hz. In addition, an ink-jet printing method for forming ink images on an image-receiving medium has the step of ejecting the above-mentioned aqueous ink composition in the form of droplets according to the recording signals at a recording frequency of 8 kHz or more.

Aqueous ink composition and ink-jet printing method using the same

A recording ink composition contains a colorant which is soluble or dispersible in water and includes at least one phthalocyanine compound of formula (1) which may have a halogen atom as a substituent and at least one of phthalocyanine compounds of formulas (2) and (3); a dispersant which includes at least one polymeric compound having a hydrophilic moiety and a hydrophobic moiety, and/or at least one surfactant having an alkyl group having 5 or more carbon atoms; water; and a humectant. In addition, images with a resolution of 10 dots/mm.times.10 dots/mm or more can be recorded on an image receiving medium by ejecting the above-mentioned recording ink composition in the form of droplets by the application of thermal or mechanical energy thereto onto an image receiving medium with a Stockigt size degree of 3 seconds or more, with the recording ink composition being deposited in an amount of 20 pl/mm.sup.2 to 200 pl/mm.sup.2 on the image receiving medium.

Recording ink composition and recording method using the same

A recording ink composition includes a colorant comprising a pigment which is soluble or dispersible in water, and a polymeric dye having a weight average molecular weight in a range of 5,000 to 15,000, a dispersant including at least one dispersant component selected from the group consisting of at least one polymeric compound having a hydrophilic moiety and a hydrophobic moiety, and/or at least one surfactant having an alkyl group having 5 or more carbon atoms, water, and a water-soluble organic solvent, and a method of recording images on an image receiving medium is performed, using the recording ink composition.

A recording material including paper containing cellulose fibers as the main component, with the elongation percentage of the paper in the cross direction thereof when immersed in water at 20.degree. C. for 1 minute being 1.8 % or less, is produced and recycled. In addition, paper containing cellulose fibers, with the same elongation percentage as mentioned above in the machine direction thereof is also provided.

Recording material, method of producing the same and method of recycling

A method of recycling a support material for supporting images thereon, at least part of the support material including a paper layer which contains cellulose fibers as the main component and bears thereon hydrophobic images having a coloring agent and a heat softening or thermofusible material, includes the steps of causing the support material to hold a water-containing image peeling liquid thereon; bringing an image peeling member into contact with the hydrophobic images while the image peeling liquid is held on the support material; and peeling the hydrophobic images off the paper layer, with the image peeling liquid being held in an amount of 1.0 g or more per A4-size paper layer, or with the rate of the penetration of the image peeling liquid into the paper layer of the support material being set at 12 ml/m.sup.2 or more for a contact time of 0.4 seconds in which the image peeling liquid is in contact with the paper layer, or with the contact angle of the image peeling liquid with respect to the hydrophobic images being 100.degree. or less.

Method of recycling support material for image-bearing member

A method of recycling a copy sheet carrying a hydrophobic image thereon by impregnating the sheet with a water-containing separating liquid, causing the to image contact an image separating member, and heating the sheet for thereby transferring the image to the image separating member. The image separating member has a critical surface tension of 25 mN/m or above.

Method of recycling an image carrying medium and an image separating

An apparatus capable of surely removing a toner or similar image forming substance stably cohered to a sheet, and an apparatus for processing a sheet are disclosed. A liquid supply unit uniformly supplies a liquid to a toner carried on the sheet. The sheet infiltrated with the liquid is heated by a toner removing unit to have to the toner thereof softened. As a result, the toner adheres to the surface of an offset member implemented as a belt or a drum. The sheet containing the liquid therein is conveyed to the toner removing unit without creasing, breaking or folding.

Apparatus for removing image forming substance from sheet and sheet

A transfer-type electrothermographic recording method comprising the steps of uniformly charging an electrothermographic recording layer which exhibits chargeability A at room temperature and chargeability B above room temperature, where the chargeabilities A and B are in the relationship of A&gt;B.gtoreq.0, forming a latent electrostatic image by applying digital thermal signals which correspond to an original image, developing the latent electrostatic image with a toner of which polarity is the same as or opposite to the polarity of the electric charge of the latent electrostatic image to form a toner image, transferring the toner image to a receiving medium, and fixing the toner image transferred on the receiving medium; and a recording medium for use with the transfer-type electrothermographic recording method, comprising the above electrothermographic recording layer.

Transfer-type electrothermographic recording method and recording medium

Image forming equipment for applying heat to a charged image carrier to attenuate part of the potential of the image carrier in order to form a latent image on the image carrier. The surface of a dielectric image carrier is charged by a charger and a thermal print head is driven in response to image information in order to form a latent image on the charged surface of the image carrier. A developing roller applies a liquid developer to the latent image and presses it against the portion where the potential has been lowered. The resulting toner image formed on the image carrier is fixed on a paper sheet fed from a paper feeding device or is directly fixed on the image carrier. The image carrier is formed of polyethylene terephthalate or a mixture of polybutylene terephthalate and silicon dioxide.

Thermal image forming equipment forms image directly on image carrier or

A transfer-type electrothermographic recording method is disclosed, which comprises the steps of uniformly charging an electrothermographic recording layer to a predetermined polarity, which exhibits chargeability A at room temperature and chargeability B above room temperature, where the chargeabilities A and B are in the relationship of A&gt;B.gtoreq.0; forming a latent electrostatic image on the charged surface of the electrothermographic recording layer by applying thermal signals which correspond to an original image to the side opposite the charged surface of the electrothermographic recording layer; and developing the latent electrostatic image with a toner of which polarity is the same as or opposite to the polarity of the latent electrostatic image to form a toner image. This transfer-type electrothermographic recording method may further comprise a step of transferring the toner image to a receiving medium; and a step of fixing the toner image transferred onto the receiving medium. An apparatus for the above transfer-type electrothermographic recording method is also disclosed.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Masato Igarashi