Image forming apparatus and image forming method
Provided is an image forming apparatus including an image bearer, a developing unit configured to develop with a toner, an intermediate transfer member, and a transferring unit, wherein the intermediate transfer member is a laminate including a base layer and an elastic layer including particles at a surface thereof to form convex-concave shapes at the surface, the particles have volume resistivity of from 1×10 0 ohm*cm through 1×10 9 ohm*cm, the toner includes additive, an amount of the additive separated from the toner is from 20 percent by mass through 35 percent by mass relative to a total amount of the additive in the toner when a toner dispersion liquid in which the toner is dispersed in a dispersant is irradiated with ultrasonic wave vibration with an irradiation energy dose of 4 kJ, and the toner has a dielectric constant of 2.6 or greater but 3.9 or less.
1. An image forming apparatus comprising:
an image bearer where a latent image is to be formed on the image bearer and the image bearer can bear a toner image;
a developing unit configured to develop a latent image formed on the image bearer with a toner to form the toner image;
an intermediate transfer member, on which the toner image formed through the development performed by the developing unit is primary transferred; and
a transferring unit configured to secondary transfer the toner image born on the intermediate transfer member to a recording medium,
wherein the intermediate transfer member includes a laminate including a base layer and an elastic layer,
the elastic layer includes particles at a surface of the elastic layer to form convex-concave shapes at the surface,
the particles have volume resistivity of from 1×10 0 ohm*cm through 1×10 9 ohm*cm,
the toner includes an additive,
an amount of the additive separated from the toner is from 20 percent by mass through 35 percent by mass relative to a total amount of the additive in the toner, when a toner dispersion liquid in which the toner is dispersed in a dispersant is irradiated with ultrasonic wave vibration with an irradiation energy dose of 4 kJ, and
the toner has a dielectric constant of 2.6 or greater but 3.9 or less.
2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the particles are spherical particles.
3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein an average particle diameter of the spherical particles is 5 micrometers or less.
4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the volume resistivity of the particles is from 1×10 1 ohm*cm through 1×10 3 ohm*cm.
5. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the intermediate transfer member is a seamless intermediate transfer belt.
6. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein a volume average particle diameter of the toner is from 3 micrometers through 7 micrometers.
7. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein an average circularity of the toner is from 0.925 through 0.970.
8. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the image forming apparatus is a full-color image forming apparatus and the image forming apparatus includes a plurality of the image bearers arranged in series and includes a plurality of the developing units corresponding to the plurality of the image bearers.
9. An image forming method comprising:
developing a latent image formed on an image bearer with a toner to form the toner image, where the image bearer is an image bearer capable of bearing a toner image;
primary transferring the toner image developed in the developing to an intermediate transfer member; and
secondary transferring the toner image born on the intermediate transfer member to a recording medium,
wherein the intermediate transfer member includes a laminate including a base layer and an elastic layer,
the elastic layer includes particles at a surface of the elastic layer to form convex-concave shapes at the surface,
the particles have volume resistivity of from 1×10 0 ohm*cm through 1×10 9 ohm*cm, the toner includes an additive,
an amount of the additive separated from the toner is from 20 percent by mass through 35 percent by mass relative to a total amount of the additive in the toner, when a toner dispersion liquid in which the toner is dispersed in a dispersant is irradiated with ultrasonic wave vibration with an irradiation energy dose of 4 kJ, and
the toner has a dielectric constant of 2.6 or greater but 3.9 or less.
10. The image forming method according to claim 9 , wherein the particles are spherical particles.
11. The image forming method according to claim 10 , wherein an average particle diameter of the spherical particles is 5 micrometers or less.
12. The image forming method according to claim 9 , wherein the volume resistivity of the particles is from 1×10 1 ohm*cm through 1×10 3 ohm*cm.
13. The image forming method according to claim 9 , wherein the intermediate transfer member is a seamless intermediate transfer belt.
14. The image forming method according to claim 9 , wherein a volume average particle diameter of the toner is from 3 micrometers through 7 micrometers.
15. The image forming apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein an average circularity of the toner is from 0.925 through 0.970.