Patent ID: 8401439

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image bearing member; a developing device to develop a latent image formed on the image bearing member by a two-component developer comprising a toner and a magnetic carrier; a transfer section to transfer a toner image formed on the bearing member onto a receiving member, and a carrier recovery section which is equipped with a recovery roller, the recovery roller being arranged in the rotational direction of the image bearing member and being disposed at such a position that is opposite to the image bearing member in a non-contact state downstream of the developing device and upstream of the transfer section, and a separating member to guide any magnetic carrier separated from the recovery roller, wherein the carrier recovery roller comprises a sleeve which is rotatable, and a magnet roller that is installed into an inner space of the sleeve and is provided with a plurality of fixed magnetic poles, the plurality of fixed magnetic poles comprises a main pole to recover the magnetic carrier from the image bearing member and a separating pole to separate the magnetic carrier from the recovery roller, wherein the separating member comprises a magnetic member comprising an edge, and is disposed at such a position that is opposite to the sleeve at a prescribed distance from the sleeve in a non-contact state, and the edge of the separating member, located downstream of the direction of rotation of the sleeve, is disposed in a magnetic field formed by the separating pole and is disposed downstream from the peak value position of the magnetic flux density in the normal direction on the surface of the sleeve.