Protective agent feeding member, protective layer forming apparatus, and image forming apparatus

Abstract

There is provided a protective agent feeding member, which contains a core and a foam layer provided on an outer periphery of the core, in which the protective agent feeding member is in the shape of a roller, and the foam layer has a roughened surface and has a maximum height Ry of 400 mum to 1,630 mum.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a protective agent supplying member, a protective layer forming apparatus using the protective agent supplying member, and an image forming apparatus including the protective layer forming apparatus. Background technique [0002] In conventional electrophotographic image formation, visible images are formed by: on an image bearing member of a photoconductive substance (also referred to as a "latent electrostatic image bearing member", "electrophotographic photoconductor", or "photoconductor") Forms an electrostatically charged latent image and binds charged toner particles to the electrostatic latent image. The visible image formed by the toner is finally transferred to a recording medium such as paper, and fixed on the recording medium, for example, by heat, pressure, solvent or gas, thereby forming an output image. [0003] According to the method of visualizing toner particle charging, electrophotographic image form...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0008] However, when the image bearing member is an organic photoconductor (OPC), the energy of the AC superposition charging cuts the molecular chains of the resin forming the surface of the image bearing member, resulting in a decrease in mechanical strength, which leads to markedly accelerated wear of the image bearing member

Further, since the surface of the image bearing member is activated by AC superposition charging, there arises a problem that the adhesive force between the surface of the image bearing member and the toner increases, and the performance of the image bearing member to be cleaned is thus lowered

[0016] However, in this proposed technique, the roll-shaped protectant supply element comprising the foam layer is too soft, so that there is little force to scrape the protectant lumps

Therefore, the protective agent cannot be ideally supplied to the image bearing member, and it is difficult to ideally suppress the filming phenomenon of the image bearing member

Further, an attempt to press the protectant lump at high pressure to increase the amount of the protectant lump scraped by the protectant supply member results in applying a large load to the protectant lump, and makes it impossible to scrape the protectant lump uniformly in the longitudinal direction. thing

As a result, the dose of protectant supplied longitudinally in the protectant block is detrimentally altered

Therefore, in the position where the supply amount of the protective agent is small in the image bearing member, the protective effect of the protective agent cannot be achieved, and a filming phenomenon occurs

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