Electrostatographic cleaning blade member and apparatus
A cleaning blade member includes a polymer substrate and an outermost layer consisting essentially of a non-particulate, non-elastomeric ceramer or fluoroceramer and nanosized inorganic particles that are distributed within the non-particulate ceramer or fluoroceramer in an amount of at least 5 weight % and up to and including 50 weight % of the outermost layer. These cleaning blade members can be used to advantage in apparatus for providing electrophotographic or electrostatographic images.
1. A cleaning blade member comprising:
a polymer substrate, and
disposed upon the polymer substrate, an outermost layer consisting essentially of a non-particulate, non-elastomeric ceramer or fluoroceramer and nanosized inorganic particles that are distributed within the non-particulate ceramer or fluoroceramer in an amount of at least 5 weight % and up to and including 50 weight % of the outermost layer.
2. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the inorganic particles have an average largest dimension of at least 1 nm and up to 500 nm.
3. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the inorganic particles have an average largest dimension of at least 10 nm and up to and including 100 nm.
4. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the inorganic particles are silica or alumina particles.
5. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the ceramer comprises a polyurethane silicate hybrid organic-inorganic network formed as a reaction product of a non-fluorinated polyurethane having terminal reactive alkoxysilane groups with a tetraalkoxysilane compound, and the fluoroceramer comprises a fluorinated polyurethane silicate hybrid organic-inorganic network formed as a reaction product of a fluorinated polyurethane having terminal reactive alkoxysilane groups with a tetraalkoxysilane compound.
6. The cleaning blade member of claim 5 wherein the ceramer polyurethane having terminal alkoxysilane groups comprises the reaction product of one or more aliphatic non-fluorinated polyols having terminal hydroxyl groups and an alkoxysilane alkyl-substituted isocyanate compound, and
the fluoroceramer polyurethane having terminal alkoxysilane groups comprises the reaction product of one or more fluorinated aliphatic polyols having terminal hydroxyl groups, one or more non-fluorinated aliphatic polyols having terminal hydroxyl groups, and an alkoxysilane alkyl-substituted isocyanate compound.
7. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the ceramer comprises a polyurethane silicate hybrid organic-inorganic network formed as a reaction product of a non-fluorinated polyurethane having terminal reactive alkoxysilane groups with a tetraalkoxysilane compound, and the fluoroceramer comprises a fluorinated polyurethane silicate hybrid organic-inorganic network formed as a reaction product of a fluorinated polyurethane having terminal reactive alkoxysilane groups with a tetraalkoxysilane compound,
wherein the tetraalkoxysilane compound is tetramethyl orthosilicate, tetrabutyl orthosilicate, tetrapropyl orthosilicate, or tetraethyl orthosilicate.
8. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the ceramer comprises a polyurethane silicate hybrid organic-inorganic network formed as a reaction product of a non-fluorinated polyurethane having terminal reactive alkoxysilane groups with tetraethyl orthosilicate, and the fluoroceramer comprises a fluorinated polyurethane silicate hybrid organic-inorganic network formed as a reaction product of a fluorinated polyurethane having terminal reactive alkoxysilane groups with tetraethyl orthosilicate.
9. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the outermost layer has a thickness of at least 0.5 μm and up to and including 20 μm.
10. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the outermost layer has a thickness of at least 3 μm and up to and including 12 μm.
11. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the outermost layer comprises a silicon oxide network comprising at least 10 weight % and up to and including 80 weight % of the non-particulate ceramer or fluoroceramer.
12. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the outermost layer has a static or dynamic (kinetic) coefficient of friction less than 0.5.
13. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the outermost layer is transparent.
14. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the polymer substrate comprises a polyurethane.
15. The cleaning blade member of claim 1 wherein the outermost layer has a storage modulus of at least 0.1 GPa and up to and including 2 GPa.
16. An electrostatic apparatus comprising:
a toner-carrying member, and
the cleaning blade member of claim 1 that is capable of cleaning the toner-carrying member.
17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the toner-carrying member is a photoconductor or an intermediate transfer member.
18. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising a charging device that produces electric charge on a toner image carrier, an exposure device that forms an electrostatic latent image on the toner image carrier, and a developing device that develops the electrostatic latent image with a developer containing the toner to form a toner image.
19. The apparatus of claim 18 that further comprises a receiver element device that can hold toner receiver elements to which a toner image can be transferred from an intermediate transfer member.
20. The apparatus of claim 18 further comprising a fixing unit for fixing the toner image on one or more toner receiver elements.