Image forming apparatus

Abstract

A toner recovery roller having at least its outer peripheral part made of an insulator and rotated and driven in a predetermined direction is disposed in the vicinity of a position where an image carrier and a developing roller interact with each other, and a triboelectric charging member for triboelectrically charging an outer peripheral surface of the toner recovery roller to a polarity opposite to that of toner particles is so provided as to be brought into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the toner recovery roller. The rotation of the toner recovery roller in a predetermined direction causes friction between the friction charging member and the insulating outer peripheral surface of the toner recovery roller, so that the insulating outer peripheral surface of the toner recovery roller is triboelectrically charged to a polarity opposite to that of toner particles. Therefore, toner particles scattered from the developing roller are attracted to the toner recovery roller to adhere thereto. A charging potential of the toner recovery roller does not immediately reach zero but remains to some extent even in cases, for example, immediately after a copying machine is stopped, when the power supply of the copying machine is turned off immediately after copying is terminated, and when a front door of the copying machine is opened by paper jamming or the like. Also in this case, therefore, floating toner particles are attracted to the toner recovery roller to adhere thereto.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.