Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Canon Kasei Kabushiki Kaisha

Tomoya Kawakami

Hiroshi Abe

Arihiro Yamamoto

Hirobumi Takahashi

Ayumi Okuda

Masaaki Kimura

Masahiro Watanabe

Hisao Kato

Syoji Inoue

Masanori Yokoyama

Youhei Ikeda

Toshirou Uchida

Yohei Ikeda

Saki Sudo

The present invention is aimed at providing an electrophotographic cleaning blade that has excellent chipping resistance and can exhibit excellent cleaning performance. This cleaning blade is provided with an elastic member that includes a polyurethane and a support member that supports the elastic member, and cleans the surface of a member to be cleaned that is moving, by bringing a part of the elastic member into contact with the surface of the member to be cleaned. The average value of the elastic modulus of the elastic member obtained when measured using SPM is at least 15 MPa and not more than 470 MPa, and the coefficient of variation thereof is not more than 6.0%.

Electrophotographic cleaning blade, process cartridge, and electrophotographic image forming apparatus

There is provided a cleaning blade including an elastic member and a supporting member, in which a free end of the elastic member has an edge and a hardened surface constituting the edge. The cleaning blade satisfies a relationship of 0.10&#x2264;DHs&#x2264;0.40 and DHs&#x2265;DHm where DHs (mN/&#x3bc;m) represents a dynamic hardness of the hardened surface and DHm (mN/&#x3bc;m) represents a maximum value of a dynamic hardness obtained in a positional range in which a distance L from the edge on a straight line that bisect an angle of the edge satisfies 0 &#x3bc;m&#x3c;L&#x2264;200 &#x3bc;m and in AFM-IR spectrum of the hardened surface, peak intensity &#x3bd; C&#x2550;O free (1724 to 1736 cm) derived from a urethane group and peak intensity &#x3bd; C&#x2550;O bond (1708 to 1720 cm) derived from a urethane group hydrogen bond has a specific relationship.

Cleaning blade, process cartridge, and electrophotographic image forming apparatus

Provided is a cleaning blade including: an elastic member; and a supporting member supporting the elastic member. The elastic member includes a free end portion, and the free end portion has an edge and a first surface and a second surface that form the edge. At least one of the first surface and the second surface has a hardened surface. The following expression (1): 0.1&#x2264;DHs&#x2264;0.4 and the following expression (2): DHs&#x3c;DHm are satisfied, where DHs (mN/&#x3bc;m) represents a dynamic hardness of the hardened surface, and DHm (mN/&#x3bc;m) represents a maximum value of the dynamic hardness obtained in a positional range in which a distance L from the edge on a straight line that bisects an angle of the edge in a cross-section of the elastic member orthogonal to a longitudinal direction thereof satisfies 0 &#x3bc;m&#x3c;L&#x2264;100 &#x3bc;m.

A contact charging roller includes a support member and a conductive coating member. The conductive coating member is composed of a seamless tube that contains at least (1) a non-polar resin or a styrene-type thermoplastic elastomer excluding a poly(styrene-hydrogentaged butadiene-styrene) block terpolymer and (2) a polar resin or an elastomer having a polar functional group containing at least nitrogen or oxygen, and contains carbon black in an amount of 10% to 60% by mass with respect to the total mass of the non-polar resin or elastomer and the polar resin or elastomer.

Charging roller

Charging roller has at least a support member and a conductive covering member, the charging roller where a value of tan &#x3b4; expressed in a ratio of a storage elastic modulus and a loss elastic modulus by dynamic viscoelasticity in a cross sectional direction of the charging roller at 25&#xb0; C. is 0.2 or more in a range of 1 to 20 kHz and 0.2 or less in a range of 1 to 10 Hz, or a charging roller where the conductive covering member is constructed of two or more layers and a value of tan &#x3b4; in at least one layer other than a surface layer is 0.2 or more at 10 Hz in a range of 10 to 50&#xb0; C. and a value of tan &#x3b4; in a cross sectional direction of the whole charging roller is 0.2 or less at 10 Hz in a range of 10 to 50&#xb0; C.

Charging roller featuring specified ratio of storage elastic modulus and dynamic viscoelasticity values and process cartridge and electrophotographic apparatus featuring the same

In a conductive roller having a conductive substrate, a conductive elastic layer and a conductive cover layer, the conductive cover layer is formed of a seamless tube containing a thermoplastic polymer, the surface of the conductive roller is coated with an inorganic compound the particle surfaces of which have been subjected to hydrophobic treatment, and the roller having been coated therewith has a glossiness of from 7.5% or more to less than 22.0%. This conductive roller can make toner and external additives less adhere to the roller surface, can prevent the faulty images due to the adhesion of photosensitive-member abrasion dust and can well perform charging in the image reproduction from the initial stage to the last.

Growing community of inventors

Suntou-gun, Japan

Tomoya Kawakami