Patent ID: 7391994

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an electrophotographic photoconductor, a charging unit configured to charge the electrophotographic photoconductor, a light exposure unit configured to expose light onto the charged electrophotographic photoconductor to form a latent electrostatic image, a developing unit loaded with a toner and configured to visualize the latent electrostatic image by depositing the toner to form a visual image, a transferring unit configured to transfer the visual image onto a recording medium, and a fixing unit configured to fix the visual image transferred onto the recording medium, wherein the electrophotographic photoconductor comprises a photosensitive layer on a conductive support wherein an outermost surface of the photosensitive layer comprises: fluoropolymer fine particles; and a binder resin; wherein the fluoropolymer fine particles comprise primary particles, and secondary particles, the secondary particles are formed by flocculation of plural primary particles, and a part of the fluoropolymer fine particles comprising the primary particles and the secondary particles are exposed above the surface of the outermost layer, and each fluoropolymer fine particle as an average diameter, D, of exposed portion above the surface of the outermost surface of 0.15 μm≦D≦3.0 μm and a total area ratio of the fluoropolymer fine particles comprising the primary particles and the secondary particles is 10% to 60% based on the entire surface area of the outermost layer, and the binder resin in the outermost layer comprises a polyalylate copolymer resin having a structural unit of alkylene-aryldicarboxylate.