Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Unitika Ltd.

Other

Kuraray Co., Ltd.

Sanyo Chemical Industries, Ltd.

Dow Corning Toray Company, Ltd.

Toshiyuki Kabata

Toshiyuki Ohsawa

Kumiko Hatakeyama

Hiroshi Yoshinaga

Masahiro Ishida

Takashi Fujita

Okitoshi Kimura

Masahide Yamashita

Masahiro Samei

Takayuki Andoh

Kota Shiodera

Momoko Shionoiri

Toshio Fukagai

Yuka Miyamoto

Sachiko Yoneyama

Masato Iio

Michio Kimura

Kumiko Seo

Hiroshi Nakai

Naoki Matsuda

Hiroyuki Shimada

Yoshiaki Echigo

Masaki Yoshino

Toshishige Fujii

Hideo Nakamori

Keiichi Asami

Teruyoshi Tanaka

Nobuo Katagiri

Tomohiro Inoue

Yoshio Watanabe

Akihiro Sugino

Koichi Kato

Jun Yura

Kunio Hasegawa

Takeshi Shibuya

Shigekazu Enoki

Junichi Yamazaki

Yasushi Koichi

Yoshitaka Hayashi

Jun Aoto

Tsuyoshi Asami

Akira Azami

Osamu Ariizumi

Noriyuki Iwata

Katsuhiko Tani

Hideki Takahashi

Yoshiko Kurosawa

Takuji Katoh

Shinji Nousyo

Katsuo Inoue

Takahiro Suzuki

Koji Suzuki

Shinya Tanaka

Yoshiki Yamaguchi

Takashi Seto

Hirokazu Ishii

Daisuke Inoue

Tamotsu Aruga

Yohta Sakon

Hiroshi Seo

Katsunori Kurose

Masahiro Ohmori

Takashi Bisaiji

Keisuke Shimoyama

Hiroshi Nishihara

Masanobu Gondoh

Shushi Nishimura

Toshiaki Motohashi

Kaori Hemmi

Ryohhei Sugiyama

Hiroyuki Iechi

Maiko Koeda

Shoji Sasaki

Kentaro Yamashita

Shinji Nousho

Masahiro Taniuchi

Kazumi Kuwata

Megumi Arai

Tetsuya Samura

Sachiko Kimura

Tomoyuki Nishikawa

Kiyoto Ohtsuka

Hideyuki Yasufuku

Momoko Kozasa

Yumiko Suzuki

Kunitsugu Aramaki

Tutomu Sakaida

Tsutomu Hayashi

A fixing device includes a rotator, a heater, a rotator support, a nip formation pad, lubricant, and a pressure rotator. The heater heats an inner circumferential surface of the rotator. The rotator support supports an end of the inner circumferential surface of the rotator in an axial direction of the rotator. The rotator slides on the rotator support. The nip formation pad is in contact with the inner circumferential surface of the rotator. One end of the nip formation pad in a longitudinal direction of the nip formation pad is separated from the rotator support with a clearance of 2 mm or more. The lubricant is between the rotator and the nip formation pad. The pressure rotator presses the nip formation pad via the rotator to form a nip between the rotator and the pressure rotator.

Fixing device and image forming apparatus

A heating device includes a rotator, a heater, a rotator holder, lubricant, and a shield. The heater heats the rotator in a heat generation range. The rotator holder holds an end of the rotator in a longitudinal direction of the rotator. The lubricant adheres to the rotator holder. The shield shields heat transferred from the heater. The shield includes a first shield, a second shield, and a heat transfer reducer. The first shield faces the heater and the rotator. The second shield faces the rotator holder. The second shield is outside the heat generation range in the longitudinal direction. The heat transfer reducer is disposed between the first shield and the second shield. The heat transfer reducer reduces the heat transferred from the first shield to the second shield.

Heating device, fixing device, and image forming apparatus

A heating device includes a rotator that rotates and a heater that is disposed opposite an inner circumferential face of the rotator. The heater heats the rotator. A rotator holder is disposed opposite the inner circumferential face of the rotator. The rotator holder holds a lateral end of the rotator in a longitudinal direction of the rotator. The rotator holder is adhered with a lubricating substance. A heat shield is disposed between the heater and the rotator and between the heater and the rotator holder. The heat shield blocks radiant heat radiated from the heater and is separated from the rotator holder. The heat shield includes a first portion and a second portion that is disposed outboard from the first portion in the longitudinal direction of the rotator. The second portion is separated from the inner circumferential face of the rotator farther than the first portion is.

Heating device, fixing device, and image forming apparatus with heat shield including first portion and second portion

A heating device includes a rotator, a heater heating the rotator, a rotator holder holding a longitudinal end of the inner peripheral surface of the rotator, and lubricant applied to the rotator holder. The rotator holder includes a holding portion contacting the end of the inner peripheral surface, a flange portion contacting a longitudinal end of the rotator and extending outward in a radial direction of a loop of the rotator, and an inclined surface. The inclined surface is inclined in a direction away from an inner peripheral surface of the rotator from the holding portion toward the flange portion.

Heating device, nip forming device, and image forming apparatus

A heating device includes a rotator, a heating source, a rotator holder, and a liquid or semi-solid substance. The rotator is rotatably held. The heating source heats the rotator. The rotator holder holds a longitudinal end portion of the rotator. The rotator holder includes a reflector disposed at least at a portion to be irradiated with radiant heat emitted from the heating source to reflect the radiant heat. The reflector has a reflectance of not less than 60%. The liquid or semi-solid substance has lubricity and adheres to the rotator holder.

Heating device, fixing device, and image forming apparatus including lubricant and reflector

An image forming apparatus includes a heating device, a recording medium ejector, a recording medium tray, an outer wall having an intake, and a filter. The heating device heats a recording medium having an image on one side of the recording medium. The recording medium ejector ejects the recording medium with the one side facing downward. On the recording medium tray, the recording medium ejected by the recording medium ejector is stacked. The intake is open toward the recording medium tray and is disposed at a position below the recording medium ejector. At the position, a maximum amount of recording media placeable on the recording medium tray does not cover at least a part of the intake. The filter collects foreign substances in air sucked from the intake.

Image forming apparatus including a filter for collect foreign substances in air sucked into at least one intake

A heating device includes a rotator that rotates and a heater that heats the rotator. A rotator holder holds each lateral end of the rotator in a longitudinal direction of the rotator. The rotator holder is adhered with one of silicone oil and silicone grease, that contains siloxanes that are not smaller than a dodecamer and not greater than a heptadecamer and have a concentration not greater than 1,250 ppm.

A heating device includes a rotating body, a heating source, a rotating body holder, and a lubricant of liquid or semi-solid. The heating source heats the rotating body. The rotating body holder holds both longitudinal ends of the rotating body rotatably. The lubricant of liquid or semi-solid adheres to the rotating body holder. A temperature of the rotating body holder is lower than a generation temperature of fine particles of the lubricant.

Heating device configured to limit a temperature rise of a lubricant, fixing device, and image forming apparatus

A nip former that forms a nip between an endless belt and a pressure rotator includes a base that is made of aluminum and has a nip forming face disposed opposite the nip. An anodic oxidation coating is treated with sealing and coats at least the nip forming face. The anodic oxidation coating has a thickness that is not smaller than 22 &#x3bc;m and is not greater than 45 &#x3bc;m and a variation in thickness that is not greater than 20 percent. The base and the anodic oxidation coating define a nip forming portion that is disposed opposite the nip. The nip forming portion has a thickness that is not smaller than 0.40 mm and is not greater than 1.20 mm.

Nip former, fixing device, and image forming apparatus

A method for manufacturing a removable information sheet includes: forming a toner image on a recording medium; applying an energy-ray-curable pressure-sensitive composition precursor onto the medium to form an energy-ray-curable pressure-sensitive composition precursor layer; irradiating, with an energy ray, the medium to cure the layer and form an energy-ray-curable pressure-sensitive composition; and attaching faces with the composition and pressure-bonding the faces. A region size of a toner-image flat part is 200 &#x3bc;m or less in the image, which is determined by a measurement method including: defining a site at a depth of 2 &#x3bc;m or more from a surface of a solid part of the image as a recess; defining a site other than the recess as the flat part; acquiring and binarizing a micrograph of the solid part; drawing circles out of contact with the recess; and defining a largest circle diameter as the size of the flat part.

Method for manufacturing removable information sheet

Metallic paper for electrophotography is provided. The metallic paper comprises a substrate, a metallic luster layer over the substrate, and a polyester at a surface of the metallic paper. A ratio B/A is 0.90 or less, where A and B respectively represent peak area A and a peak area B in an infrared spectrum of the metallic paper obtained by an ATR method with a crystal of Ge, an incident angle of 45&#xb0;, and one time of reflection. The wavenumber range of peak area A ranges from 1709.586 to 1741.406 cm, the wavenumber range of peak area. B ranges from 1630,519 to 1670.052 cm, and a baseline wavenumber range of the peaks ranges from 1593.878 to 1850.364 cm.

Metallic paper, printed matter, and image forming method

An image forming method for an image forming apparatus having a fixing rotator and a pressure rotator opposite the fixing rotator includes transferring white toner and color toner onto a surface of a metallic sheet. The metallic sheet has a thermal conductivity of 0.34 W/m&#xb7;K or less as measured by hot-wire method. The transferring process forms an unfixed color toner layer layered on an unfixed white toner layer on the metallic sheet. Further, the method includes conveying the metallic sheet, with the surface on which the white toner layer and the color toner layer being transferred facing the fixing rotator, between the fixing rotator heated and the pressure rotator to fix the white toner layer and the color toner layer onto the metallic sheet.

Image forming method for metallic sheets

A particle collecting device includes an ozone exhaust path and an electrostatic filter. The ozone exhaust path is configured to exhaust ozone generated by an ozone generation device. The electrostatic filter is in a course of the ozone exhaust path.

Particle collecting device and image forming apparatus including same

A toner including base particles and external additives on the base particles, the toner satisfying Conditions 1 and 2 defined in the specification, when a number distribution D of particle diameters of powder particles B generated from one base particle A is calculated from a density a of the base particles A and a density b of the powder particles B, where the base particles A and the powder particles B are deposited on an adhesive area and mica respectively by feeding the toner into a vacuumed space from an inlet, and allowing the toner to crush against a surface of a substrate having the adhesive area composed of a carbon tape, and the mica disposed in a manner that the surface is orthogonal to a direction connecting between center of the vacuumed space and center of the inlet, Powder particles B: particles detached from the base particles.

Toner, toner stored unit, image forming apparatus, and image forming method

An ester wax is provided. The ester wax includes a long-chain aliphatic ester represented by the following formula:R&#x2014;COO&#x2014;R'wherein R represents an alky group having 13 to 23 carbon atoms and R&#x2032; represents an alkyl group having 18 to 22 carbon atoms. The ester wax further includes an aliphatic alcohol having 18 to 22 carbon atoms in an amount less than 3% by mass based on a total mass of the ester wax.

Ester wax, toner, developer, toner storing unit, and image forming apparatus

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Kanagawa, Japan

Toshiyuki Kabata