Patent ID: 6400918
Filing Date: 2002-06-04
Classification: G03G

Abstract:
An image forming apparatus comprising:an image carrier; developing means for forming a toner image by developing an electrostatic image formed on said image carrier with toner, said developing means simultaneously performing a developing operation and recovering normally-charged toner from said image carrier; image transfer means for transfering the toner image from said image carrier to a transfer material; and a cleaning device for cleaning the toner remaining on said image carrier after an image transfer operation by said image transfer means, said cleaning device having a container for containing the toner removed from said image carrier and a rotating cleaning member for cleaning reversed-charged toner on said image carrier and through which the normally-charged toner passes while scattering the normally-charged toner on said image carrier, wherein a voltage which has a component of a same polarity as a charging polarity of the normally-charged toner, is applied to said rotating cleaning member, and said rotating cleaning member is disposed so as to contact said image carrier rotating with a circumferential speed, which is different from a circumferential speed of said image carrier, wherein the electrostatic image is formed on said image carrier while the normally-charged toner, scattered by said rotating cleaning member, is carried on said image carrier, and the normally-charged toner is capable of being recovered by said developing means, and wherein the scattered normally-charged toner has an average grain size and a distribution density that is sufficiently small to produce a desired amount of scattering such that there is no deterioration in a quality of the toner image.