Patent ID: 8630568

Claim:
A liquid development apparatus comprising: a development roller configured to carry on a surface thereof a liquid developer including a carrier liquid and toner particles dispersed therein, and to convey the liquid developer onto an image carrier to develop an electrostatic latent image formed on the image carrier; a supply roller configured to carry on a surface thereof the liquid developer and supply the liquid developer onto the development roller; a pool forming member provided facing the supply roller, and configured to form a pool of the liquid developer or the cleaning liquid thereon to supply the liquid developer or the cleaning liquid onto the supply roller, respectively, wherein there is a gap between the pool forming member and the supply roller; a cleaning liquid supply member configured to supply the cleaning liquid onto the pool forming member to form a pool of the cleaning liquid thereon, thereby performing a cleaning operation in which the cleaning liquid is supplied to the pool forming member to form the pool of the cleaning liquid thereon so as to clean and remove the liquid developer remaining on the surface of the supply roller at a certain time while a development operation to develop an electrostatic latent image with the liquid developer is not performed; a controller configured to switch between the cleaning operation and the development operation; and a gap setting member configured to drive the pool forming member to set the gap between the pool forming member and the supply roller to have a predetermined distance, wherein the controller controls the gap setting member to set the gap between the pool forming member and the supply roller narrower when the cleaning liquid is supplied onto the pool forming member in the cleaning operation than when the liquid developer is supplied onto the pool forming member in the development operation.