Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Shohei Gohda

Masanobu Gondoh

Yohta Sakon

Kaori Toyama

Masahiro Ohmori

Shinji Nohsho

Yuka Aoyama

Hiromi Sakaguchi

Yasuyuki Yamashita

Yuta Nakamura

Satoshi Kojima

Hiroshi Ikuno

Yoshihiro Moriya

Tetsuya Toshine

Keiichiro Juri

Ryohichi Kitajima

Takayuki Gotoh

Ichiro Maeda

Takeshi Tada

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

Provided is a cleaning blade including an elastic member, wherein a spin-spin relaxation time (T) of the elastic member obtained by a solid echo method in a pulse NMR analysis is longer than or equal to 0.60 msec but shorter than or equal to 1.0 msec, and wherein the elastic member has a contact part to contact a surface of a cleaning target member, and the contact part contains a cured product of a curable composition.

Cleaning blade, image forming apparatus, 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

A cleaning blade cleaning the surface of an object includes a rigid holder; and a strip-shaped elastic body fixed on the holder, including a tip ridgeline contacting the surface of the object. The elastic body has a length (L) projecting from the holder not less than 4 mm, a Martens hardness of from 1.0 to 10.0 N/mmfrom the tip ridgeline to the middle (L/2) thereof, and a Martens hardness of from 0.3 to 0.8 N/mmfrom the middle (L/2) thereof.

Cleaning blade having an elastic body of segmented hardnesses, and image forming apparatus and process cartridge including the cleaning blade

A cleaning blade, including: rectangular elastic body blade containing cured first-UV-curable resin at tip ridgeline portion thereof, brought into contact with surface of to-be-cleaned member, the cured first-UV-curable resin being formed by impregnating the tip ridgeline portion with the first-UV-curable resin, followed by curing, and depth of the elastic body blade impregnated with the first-UV-curable resin from edge surface thereof is 50 &#x3bc;m-150 &#x3bc;m, wherein the elastic body blade contains surface layer containing cured second-UV-curable resin at the edge surface, wherein load-displacement curve of Martens hardness thereof has inflection points, and is obtained by pressing region of the surface layer thereof via resin particles having average particle diameter of 5 &#x3bc;m-10 &#x3bc;m, and distance of the region from the tip ridgeline portion is 0.5 mm or less, and wherein ratio of displacement at the inflection point, with which load is maximum, to the average particle diameter is 1.5-2.0.

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a charging mechanism to charge a surface of the image carrier, an electrostatic latent image forming mechanism to form an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the image carrier, a developing mechanism to develop the electrostatic latent image formed on the surface of the image carrier into a toner image, a transfer mechanism to transfer the toner image on the surface of the image carrier to a transfer body, and a cleaning mechanism including a cleaning blade to clean a transfer residue toner adhering to the surface of the image carrier by contacting the surface of the image carrier. The cleaning blade includes a strip shaped elastic blade and a surface layer formed on an opposing surface of the strip shaped elastic blade opposite the surface of the image carrier.

A cleaning blade cleaning the surface of an object includes a rigid holder; and a strip-shaped elastic body fixed on the holder, having a tip ridgeline to contact the surface of the object. The elastic body has a Martens hardness M1 in the range of from 0.9 to 10.0 N/mmat a position 300 &#x3bc;m from the ridgeline on an undersurface of the elastic body including the ridgeline, a Martens hardness M2 at a position 1,000 &#x3bc;m therefrom and a Martens hardness M3 at a position 2,000 &#x3bc;m therefrom, and M1, M2 and M3 satisfy the following relationship:M1&#x3e;M2&#x3e;M3.

Cleaning blade, image forming apparatus and process cartridge

A cleaning blade includes a supporting member, and a tabular elastic member. One end portion of the elastic member is fixed to the supporting member, and the other end portion is a free end portion whose tip edge is to be contacted with a member to be cleaned while rubbing the surface to remove a residual material therefrom. The tip portion of the free end portion of the elastic member ranging in length from 0 to 500 &#x3bc;m from the tip surface thereof includes at least a cured material of a curable compound and an elastic material of the elastic member. The elastic member satisfies the relationship, 0.05(%)&#x2266;[(t&#x2212;t)/t]&#xd7;100&#x2266;2%, wherein trepresents the maximum thickness of the tip portion of the elastic member, and trepresents the average thickness of the rear portion of the free end portion of the elastic member.

Cleaning blade, and image forming apparatus and process cartridge using the cleaning blade

A cleaning blade cleaning the surface of an object includes a rigid holder; and a strip-shaped elastic body fixed on the holder, including a tip ridgeline to contact the surface of the object. The cleaning blade includes a part having a Martens hardness of from 0.9 to 5.0 N/mmat a depth of 20 &#x3bc;m from an undersurface of the blade including the ridgeline, 0.3 to 0.8 N/mmat a depth of 40 &#x3bc;m therefrom, and the Martens hardness at a depth of 20 &#x3bc;m therefrom larger than that at a depth of 40 &#x3bc;m therefrom by 0.6 N/mm.

A cleaning blade is provided. The cleaning blade includes a strip-shaped elastic blade. At least the tip edge portion of the elastic blade, which is to be contacted with the surface of a moving object to remove a powdery material from the surface of the moving object, includes an ultraviolet crosslinked resin, which includes an acrylate or methacrylate unit including a fluorine-containing group, and another acrylate or methacrylate unit having a tricyclodecane or adamantane skeleton, from the surface of the tip edge portion to a depth of not less than 5 &#x3bc;m.

Cleaning blade, method for preparing the cleaning blade, and image forming apparatus and process cartridge using the cleaning blade

An image forming apparatus, which contains: an image bearing member; a charging unit; an exposing unit; a developing unit; a transferring unit; and a cleaning unit, wherein the image bearing member contains an electrically conductive support, a photoconductive layer formed on the electrically conductive support, and a surface layer containing a binder resin and particles formed on a surface of the photoconductive layer, or contains the electrically conductive support, and the photoconductive layer formed on the electrically conductive support, wherein the cleaning unit contains a cleaning blade, which contains a cured composition containing a curing agent in a region of the cleaning blade, which is to be in contact with the image bearing member, and wherein the curing agent contains a polycyclic aliphatic hydrocarbon group, and a (meth)acryloyloxy group.

Image forming apparatus and process cartridge including a cleaning blade which includes a cured composition

A cleaning blade includes an elastic member configured to come into contact with a surface of a member to be cleaned and remove residual matter adhering to the surface of the member to be cleaned. The elastic member satisfies the following requirements a and b: a. The elastic member has a contact portion configured to come into contact with the surface of the member to be cleaned and the contact portion includes a modified layer that contains a cured product of an ultraviolet curable composition containing a (meth)acrylate compound; and b. A value obtained by normalizing a peak area ratio S/Sof a modified portion with a peak area ratio S'/S&#x2032; of a portion outside the modified layer is 1.5 or more and 10 or less where Sis a peak area value at 1162 cmand Sis a peak area value at 1533 cmobtained by infrared microspectrometry, and the modified portion is a region that extends 100 &#x3bc;m in a contact portion thickness inward direction from the contact portion on a plane that lies at an equal distance from two surfaces constituting the contact portion.

An image forming apparatus, including: an image bearing member; a charging unit; an exposure unit; a developing unit; a transfer unit; a fixing unit; and a cleaning unit including a cleaning blade, wherein the charging unit includes a charging roller that is brought into contact with the image bearing member for charging, the charging roller abutting the image bearing member at a pressing force of 10 mN/cm to 1,000 mN/cm, wherein the cleaning blade includes an elastic member that abuts the surface of the image bearing member to remove a residue attached to the surface of the image bearing member, and wherein an abutment part of the elastic member, which abuts the surface of the image bearing member, includes a cured product of an ultraviolet curable composition containing a (meth)acrylate compound having an alicyclic structure having 6 or more carbon atoms in a molecule.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Shohei Gohda