Maintenance and recovery device of a liquid discharge apparatus and an image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• a liquid droplet discharge head as a recording head having a nozzle that discharges droplets of a recording liquid;
• and
• a maintenance and recovery device that maintains and recovers a performance of said liquid droplet discharge head,
• wherein said maintenance and recovery device has a liquid droplet discharge head discharging droplets of a recording liquid from a nozzle, the recording liquid contains water, pigment, a polymer component and a water-soluble organic solvent, an amount of pigment is equal to or more than 6 weight percent of the recording liquid, a viscosity of the recording liquid is equal to or higher than 5 cps and equal to or lower than 20 cps, a surface tension of the recording liquid is equal to or smaller than 40 dyne/cm at a temperature of 25° C., and the maintenance and recovery device includes:
• a suction cap member that caps a nozzle plane of the liquid droplet discharge head;
• and
• a plurality of inclined surfaces formed in said suction cap member that provide slopes toward an evacuation port on a bottom of said suction cap member from an entire circumference of an opening part of said suction cap member, each of the inclined surfaces forming an inclination angle equal to or larger than 20 degrees with respect to a horizontal plane so that a cross-sectional area of a liquid passage formed by said inclined surfaces continuously decreases from said opening part toward said evacuation port,
• wherein a sum of the inclination angle and a contact angle of said recording liquid with respect to a material forming said inclined surfaces is within a range from 75 degrees to 97 degrees.