A cleaning blade that contacts a cleaning target member having a cleaning target surface which moves, and cleans the cleaning target surface, includes a blade body; and a blade protrusion that is present at an end portion of a lower surface of the blade body near a distal end surface of the blade body, has a shape protruding outward in a thickness direction with respect to the lower surface, and has an inclined surface being a surface continued from the distal end surface and inclined outward in the thickness direction with respect to the lower surface and inward in a height direction with respect to the distal end surface from an end of the distal end surface near the lower surface. At least a portion of the incline surface is a contact surface that contacts the cleaning target member.

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus which sequentially performs charging, exposure, development, transfer and cleaning on each surface portion of a photoreceptor during rotation includes: a cleaning blade configured to scrape off toner from the surface of the photoreceptor; a detecting unit configured to detect a rotation angle of the photoreceptor; and a control unit configured to control each of a start process and an end process of rotation of the photoreceptor and charging, development and transfer of the photoreceptor, wherein, in the end process, the control unit estimates a position of a surface portion of the photoreceptor, at which a charged state caused by a peeling discharge remains even after the stop of the photoreceptor, from the rotation angle from the time of start of deceleration of the photoreceptor to the time of stop of the photoreceptor, and adjusts parameters necessary for the next start process or end process.

An image forming apparatus includes a rotatable image bearer, a transfer member, a cleaning member, a light irradiator, and a light transmissive member. The transfer member forms a transfer position at which a visible image on a surface of the image bearer is transferred to a recording medium conveyed through a conveyance path. The cleaning member forms a cleaning position at which a substance adhering to the surface of the image bearer after transfer is cleaned. The light irradiator is disposed at a back face side of the recording medium opposite a side at which the surface of the image bearer is disposed relative to the conveyance path. The light irradiator is configured to emit light onto the surface of the image bearer. The light is targeted between the transfer position and the cleaning position. The light transmissive member is disposed between the light irradiator and the image bearer.

Image forming apparatus, including: image bearer; charging unit for electrically charging image bearer surface; developing unit for developing with toner, electrostatic latent image formed over image bearer by exposure unit for performing light exposure; transfer unit for transferring developed toner to receiving member; and cleaning unit for cleaning toner remaining over image bearer without being transferred, wherein the toner contains: external additives; and base particles made of at least binder resin and colorant, external additive content of the toner is from 4 to 7 parts by mass relative to 100 parts by mass of base particles, primary particles of at least one external additive have a number average particle diameter of 0.01 to 0.05 μm, cleaning unit includes an elastic-body blade having surface elastic modulus of from 15 to 25 N/mm.sup.2 and surface friction coefficient of from 0.5 to 0.7 at an abutment part thereof abutting on image bearer.

An image forming device includes an image carrier, a charging device that charges the surface of the image carrier, an electrostatic image forming device that forms an electrostatic image on the surface of the image carrier, a developing device that uses a developer containing toner particles and external additives adhering to the surface of the toner particle to develop the electrostatic image into a toner image, a transfer device that transfers the toner image to a recording medium, a cleaning device having a blade that cleans off residual toner from the image carrier, a suction device that suctions all or part of residual toner excepting the external additives released from the surface of the toner particles, and a fixing device that fixes the toner image to the recording medium.

An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a cleaning member that cleans the image carrier, an image forming unit that forms an image on a recording material, and a controller that controls the image forming unit based on at least one of physical property information and dimension information of the cleaning member.

A drum cleaner in a drum unit removes toner from a photosensitive drum. A waste-toner conveyance pipe has a waste-toner discharge port and conveys toner removed from the photosensitive drum by the drum cleaner. A toner accommodation chamber accommodates toner to be supplied to a developing roller. A waste-toner accommodation chamber accommodates toner removed from the photosensitive drum. A toner cartridge rotatably moves relative to the drum unit between: a first position at which a waste-toner receiving port is separated from the waste-toner discharge port in a state where the toner cartridge is mounted on the drum unit; and a second position at which an internal space of the waste-toner accommodation chamber is in communication with an internal space of the waste-toner conveyance pipe through the waste-toner discharge port and the waste-toner receiving port in a state where the toner cartridge is mounted on the drum unit.

An accumulation removal device includes a cleaning blade, a fluid supply device, and an instruction device. The cleaning blade is disposed so as to be in contact with a surface of an image holding member and cleans the surface of the image holding member after an image forming process has been performed. The fluid supply device supplies a fluid which contains solid particles to a position where the cleaning blade is disposed. The instruction device issues an instruction to cause the fluid supply device to supply the fluid at predetermined timing.

A cleaning device in accordance with the present disclosure includes a cleaning member to clean toner on an image bearer, a toner conveyor that rotates to convey toner cleaned by the cleaning member, and an agitator that includes a bent portion that is in contact with the toner conveyor, and the agitator vibrates due to the rotation of the toner conveyor. The agitator includes a plurality of arm members, and a first end of a first arm member of the plurality of arm members is attached to a second end of a second arm member of the plurality of arm members.

An image forming apparatus includes a developing unit that contains an electrostatic charge image developer and develops an electrostatic charge image formed on a surface of the image holding member with the developer, wherein the developer contains a carrier and an electrostatic charge image developing toner that includes a toner particle which contains a urea-modified polyester resin, and includes, in a vicinity of a surface thereof, vinyl resin particles; and an external additive which contains silica particles having a compression aggregation degree of 60% to 95% and a particle compression ratio of 0.20 to 0.40.