Patent ID: 7295796

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier; charging means for uniformly charging a surface of said image carrier with a charging member, which is applied with a bias of preselected polarity for charging, contacting or adjoining said surface; latent image forming means for forming a latent image on the surface of said image carrier uniformly charged; developing means for developing the latent image by depositing a toner of same polarity as the bias for charging on said latent image to thereby form a corresponding toner image; image transferring means for forming an electric field between said image carrier and a moving member whose surface is movable in contact with said image carrier to thereby transfer the toner image from the surface of said image carrier to a recording member or said moving member nipped between image carrier and said moving member; temporary holding means for collecting, among residual toner grains left on the surface of said image carrier after transfer of the toner image, toner grains of opposite polarity charged to polarity opposite to the preselected polarity from the surface of said image carrier and then releasing said toner grains of opposite polarity to said surface at a preselected timing; and collecting means for collecting the toner grains of opposite polarity, moved away from a position where the surface of said image carrier and said charging member face each other, from said surface; wherein at least one of a charge control agent and organic fine grains is present on a surface of an individual toner grain, and wherein said charging means is released from the surface of said image carrier until the toner grains of opposite polarity, released from said temporary holding means to the surface of said image carrier, move away from a charging zone.