Toner, toner housing unit, image forming apparatus, and image forming method
A toner includes a binder resin; and a plate-shaped pigment having a silica coated layer on the surface, an average-particle diameter of from 10 μm to 25 μm, and an aspect ratio of from 20 to 125.
1. A toner, comprising:
a binder resin; and
a plate-shaped pigment having a silica coated layer on a surface thereof, and having an average particle diameter of from 10 μm to 25 μm, and an aspect ratio of from 20 to 125.
2. The toner of claim 1 , wherein the toner satisfies the following relation:
T2−T1≥30° C.
wherein
T 1 is a temperature at which the toner has a storage modulus G′ of 1 ×10 4 (Pa); and
T 2 is a temperature at which the toner has a storage modulus G′ of 1 ×10 2 (Pa).
3. A toner housing unit housing the toner according to claim 1 .
4. An image forming apparatus, comprising:
an electrostatic latent image bearer;
an electrostatic latent image former configured to form an electrostatic latent image on the electrostatic latent image bearer;
an image developer comprising the toner according to claim 1 and configured to form a toner image on the electrostatic latent image bearer;
a transferer configured to transfer the toner image onto a surface of a recording medium; and
a fixer to fix the toner image on a surface of the recording medium.
5. An image forming method, comprising:
forming an electrostatic latent image on an electrostatic latent image bearer;
developing the electrostatic latent image with the toner according to claim 1 to form a toner image on the electrostatic latent image bearer;
transferring the toner image onto the surface of a recording medium; and
fixing the toner image on the surface of the recording medium,
wherein the toner on the recording medium, before fixation, has a number density of from 84,000 pieces/cm 2 to 1,400,000 pieces/cm 2 and a standard deviation of distances between the toner particles not greater than 0.7.
6. The image forming method of claim 5 , wherein the fixing of the toner image comprises fixing the toner image on the surface of the recording medium for a fixing nip time of from 20 ms to 60 ms and at a fixing pressure of from 15 N/cm 2 to 30 N/cm 2 .
7. The toner of claim 1 , wherein the toner has a weight-average molecular weight (Mw) of 9,000-29,000 and a number-average molecular weight (Mn) of 1,900 to 2,400.
8. The toner of claim 7 , wherein the weight-average molecular weight (Mw) of the toner is 29,000 and the number-average molecular weight (Mn) of the toner is 2,400.