1991 Volume 30 Issue 3 Pages 293-301
In the reversal development process, development and cleaning can be performed simultaneously by the same development unit. The residual toner particles on the nonexposed area of the photoreceptor are attracted to the development roller by an electrostatic force and return into the development unit, while the toner particles on the development roller are attracted to the exposed area simultaneously. This simultaneous development and cleaning is due to the phenomenon that residual toner particles are charged to the same polarity as that of development toner in the reversal development process during charging of the photoreceptor. A compact and waste-toner-free cleanerless laser printer, based on this idea, was put into practical use. In order to realize still simpler printing process, the authors studied the feasibility to apply a contact-type monocomponent nonmagnetic development using a soft and conductive development roller. It is assumed that undesirable memory images, caused by residual toner, can be diminished by this development system, because the development roller as an developing electrode is so close to the photoconductive surface that the development and cleaning electric field becomes very high. In this paper, a high cleaning efficiency of this development system is shown, based on an analytical model, in which effects of residual toner in both the charging and exposure processes are taken into consideration. Residual toner on the photoconductive surface up to an amount as high as 0.55 × 10-2 (kgm2) can be removed perfectly in this process.
