Zeon Corporation

Muneharu Itoh

Hiroto Kidokoro

An image forming method using a cleaning blade which prevents the spherical toner to pass through a gap between the blade and a photosensitive member and which has durability so as to be less worn away or chipped, wherein it is possible to maintain cleaning performance over a long term even in high-speed printing using spherical toner, and a non-transferred toner and external additives dropping out from colored particles less causes filming on the photosensitive member and less gives damage to the surface of the photosensitive member, is provided. A method of forming an image using a toner having an average circularity of 0.95 to 0.998 to perform developing, transferring, fixing and cleaning for removing the toner remaining on the photosensitive member after the transferring by a cleaning bladeabutting on the photosensitive member, wherein an abutting portion of the cleaning bladeon the photosensitive member has an indentation modulus (A) of 5 to 15 KPa at an indenting load of 10 mN and 23&#xb0; C., a ratio of the modulus (A) to an indentation modulus (B) at an indenting load of 100 mN and 23&#xb0; C. of 1.1 to 1.8, and a loss tangent (tan &#x3b4;) of the cleaning blade at 20 to 50&#xb0; C. in the range from 0.01 to 0.1.

Image forming method

A toner for an image-forming apparatus and method which apparatus has a cleaning means with a cleaning blade to remove a residual toner remaining on a surface of a photoconductive member after transfer; the toner being a mixture of a colored polymer particle and an external additive. The colored polymer particle has an average circle degree in the range of 0.95-0.995 and a volume average particle diameter in the range of 3-8 &#x3bc;m. The toner has an absolute value of charge amount in the range of 20-70 &#x3bc;C/g in a toner layer formed on a developing roll when the toner is used with the image-forming apparatus.

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Tokyo, Japan

Muneharu Itoh