US-12619177-B2 - Electrophotographic belt, method for producing electrophotographic belt, and electrophotographic image forming apparatus

Abstract

An electrophotographic belt having a base layer and a surface layer on the base layer, wherein the surface layer comprises an organosilicon polymer as a binder and a silica particle as a roughening particle, a content of the silica particle in the surface layer is 2.5 to 20.0% by mass, and when a reflectance of a surface layer side of the electrophotographic belt to light with a wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm and an incident angle of 0° is measured, a minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 1.5% or more, and a difference between a maximum value and a minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 0.5% or less.

Inventors

• Kaoru Okamoto
• Naoto Kameyama

Assignees

• CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20250110

Priority Date

20240130

Claims (8)

1. 1 . An electrophotographic belt having a base layer and a surface layer on the base layer, wherein the surface layer comprises an organosilicon polymer as a binder and a silica particle as a roughening particle, a content of the silica particle in the surface layer is 2.5 to 20.0% by mass, and when a reflectance of a surface layer side of the electrophotographic belt to light with a wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm and an incident angle of 0° is measured, a minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 1.5% or more, and a difference between a maximum value and the minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 0.5% or less.
2. 2 . The electrophotographic belt according to claim 1 , wherein the surface layer further comprises a compound comprising at least one functional group selected from the group consisting of a carboxyl group and a phosphate group, and at least one amine selected from the group consisting of a secondary amine and a tertiary amine.
3. 3 . The electrophotographic belt according to claim 2 , wherein the tertiary amine comprises at least one selected from the group consisting of tripropylamine and trioctylamine.
4. 4 . The electrophotographic belt according to claim 2 , wherein the compound comprises acetic acid.
5. 5 . The electrophotographic belt according to claim 1 , wherein the surface layer has a 10-point average roughness Rzjis of from 0.10 to 0.50 μm.
6. 6 . The electrophotographic belt according to claim 1 , wherein a number-average particle diameter of a secondary particle of the silica particle is 100 to 400 nm.
7. 7 . A method for producing the electrophotographic belt according to claim 1 , the method comprising: a preparation step of preparing a coating liquid for forming a surface layer; a coating step of coating the coating liquid on the base layer; and a curing step of curing the coating liquid coated on the base layer, wherein: the curing step comprises a step of forming an organosilicon polymer by hydrolyzing an alkoxysilane and then inducing a dehydration condensation reaction; the preparation step comprises a step of preparing a silica particle dispersion liquid, and a step of preparing the coating liquid by using the silica particle dispersion liquid; and the step of preparing the silica particle dispersion liquid comprises a step of mixing the silica particle, a compound comprising at least one functional group selected from the group consisting of a carboxyl group and a phosphate group, and at least one amine selected from the group consisting of a secondary amine and a tertiary amine.
8. 8 . An electrophotographic image forming apparatus comprising an intermediate transfer belt, wherein the intermediate transfer belt is an electrophotographic belt having a base layer and a surface layer on the base layer, the surface layer comprises an organosilicon polymer as a binder and a silica particle as a roughening particle, a content of the silica particle in the surface layer is 2.5 to 20.0% by mass, and when a reflectance of a surface layer side of the electrophotographic belt to light with a wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm and an incident angle of 0° is measured, a minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 1.5% or more, and a difference between a maximum value and the minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 0.5% or less.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present disclosure relates to an electrophotographic belt, a method for producing an electrophotographic belt, and an electrophotographic image forming apparatus. Description of the Related Art Electrophotographic image forming apparatuses (hereinafter also referred to as image forming apparatuses) are widely used as copying machines, printers, facsimile machines, etc., using electrophotographic and electrostatic recording methods. In an image forming apparatus of an electrophotographic system, a tandem method is widely adopted in which a latent image formed on an image bearing member (photosensitive member) is developed with toner, and toner images of each color of YMCK are superimposed on an intermediate transfer belt and then transferred all at once onto paper to obtain a full-color image. The intermediate transfer belt used in this image forming method is required to have good toner transferability from the electrostatic latent image bearing member to the intermediate transfer belt, good toner transferability from the intermediate transfer belt to a transfer material, cleaning performance for neatly removing remaining toner after transfer, and the like. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2020-56928 describes an intermediate transfer belt having a base material layer and a surface layer, wherein in the surface layer, less than 2.5% by mass of a filler is added to a cured product obtained by curing an alkoxysilane. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Here, in an image forming apparatus for obtaining a full-color image, the following control may be performed to realize high color reproducibility. That is, in some cases, a toner image for correcting a color shift (hereinafter simply referred to as a “correction toner image”) is formed on the intermediate transfer belt, the correction toner image is detected by an optical sensor using an image density sensor, and control for correcting color shift is performed based on the detection result. The optical sensor detects the correction toner image using the difference between the amount of reflected light from a portion where the correction toner image is not formed and the amount of reflected light from a portion where the correction toner image is formed (hereinafter simply referred to as “contrast”). However, the present inventors have found that it is difficult to maintain a constant amount of reflected light from the portion where the correction toner image is not formed with the intermediate transfer belt having the surface layer as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2020-56928. If there is non-uniformity in the reflected light from the intermediate transfer belt, the contrast of the correction toner image cannot be detected correctly, making it difficult to obtain high color reproducibility. At least one aspect of the present disclosure is directed to providing an electrophotographic belt making it possible to detect correctly the contrast of the correction toner image. Further, at least one aspect of the present disclosure is directed to providing a method for producing the electrophotographic belt. Furthermore, at least one aspect of the present disclosure is directed to providing an electrophotographic image forming apparatus making it possible to stably form a high-quality electrophotographic image. At least one aspect of the present disclosure provides an electrophotographic belt having a base layer and a surface layer on the base layer, wherein the surface layer comprises an organosilicon polymer as a binder and a silica particle as a roughening particle,a content of the silica particle in the surface layer is 2.5 to 20.0% by mass, andwhen a reflectance of a surface layer side of the electrophotographic belt to light with a wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm and an incident angle of 0° is measured, a minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 1.5% or more, and a difference between a maximum value and a minimum value of the reflectance at the wavelength of from 800 to 1000 nm is 0.5% or less. Further, at least one aspect of the present disclosure provides a method for producing the electrophotographic belt of the present disclosure, wherein the method comprises: a preparation step of preparing a coating liquid for forming a surface layer;a coating step of coating the coating liquid for forming a surface layer on the base layer; anda curing step of curing the coating liquid for forming a surface layer having been coated on the base layer, the curing step comprises a step of forming an organosilicon polymer by hydrolyzing an alkoxysilane and then inducing a dehydration condensation reaction;the preparation step comprises a step of preparing a silica particle dispersion liquid, and a step of preparing the coating liquid for forming a surface layer by using the silica particle dispersion liquid; andthe step of preparing the silica p