A cleaning device includes a cleaning roller, a cleaning blade, a toner layer forming member and a regulating member. The cleaning roller comes into contact with a surface of a rotating image carrier and rotates. The cleaning blade comes into contact with the image carrier at a downstream side from the cleaning roller in a rotating direction of the image carrier and scrapes toner adhered to the image carrier. The toner layer forming member receives and collects the toner scraped by the cleaning blade and feeds the toner to the cleaning roller to form a toner layer on the cleaning roller. The regulating member comes into contact with the cleaning roller to regulate thickness of the toner layer. The regulating member is controlled so as to thicken thickness of the toner layer formed on the cleaning roller as rotating rate of the image carrier becomes slower.

A toner collecting device includes an exhaust path and a catching installation. Through the exhaust path, air containing a floating toner is passed. The catching installation is configured to catch the floating toner from the air passing through the exhaust path. The catching installation is formed by overlapping a plural of filters each having a different mesh size.

A cleaning body includes a shaft and an elastic layer that is helically wound around the shaft from one end side to the other end side of the shaft and fixed on the shaft and that cleans a body to be cleaned while the elastic layer rotates. The elastic layer includes a division portion having plural divided segments and having a length of from 20% to 70% of the full length of the elastic layer. The division portion is located in a longitudinal central portion of the elastic layer. In the sectional view perpendicular to the axial direction of the shaft, a minimum thickness part in the longitudinal central portion of the elastic layer is from 5% to 12% thicker than a minimum thickness part in each longitudinal end portion of the elastic layer.

A cleaning member includes plural bristles including tips that come into contact with an object to be cleaned having a surface including recesses and projections; and a brush base to which the bristles are attached. The bristles each have a non-circular cross-section including a projecting portion that projects toward an outer periphery, at least the projecting portion having a size such that the projecting portion is capable of entering the recesses in the object to be cleaned.

Examples of refreshing a photoconductive layer in an image forming apparatus are described. In one example, a method comprises performing a first refreshing cycle comprising applying, at a first refresh unit, a first refresh voltage to the photoconductive layer and applying, at a second refresh unit, a second refresh voltage to the photoconductive layer. A second refreshing cycle is performed comprising applying, at the first refresh unit, a third refresh voltage to the photoconductive layer, the third refresh voltage being higher than the first refresh voltage and higher than the second refresh voltage. Each of the first and second refreshing cycles electrically bias the photoconductive layer to a refresh polarity opposite to a print polarity applied during a print routine of the image forming apparatus.

A cleaning device, which is included in a process cartridge and an image forming apparatus, includes a cleaning blade configured to remove a material attached to a surface of an image bearer, a cleaning case configured to contain the material removed by the cleaning blade, and a removed material receiver configured to receive the material failed to enter into the cleaning case when the material is removed by the cleaning blade, the removed material receiver having a first range at both ends in a width direction of the cleaning blade and a second range at a center in the width direction of the cleaning blade. A volume per unit length in a width direction of the first range is greater than a volume per unit length in a width direction of the second range.

Cleaning a photoconductive surface (16) from particles and excess fluid with at least two wiper blades, wherein a first wiper blade (12) is to contact the photoconductive surface (16) and to wipe at least some of the particles and at least some of the excess fluid from the photoconductive surface (16) and wherein a second wiper blade (14) is to contact the photoconductive surface (16) and to wipe at least some of the particles and at least some of the excess fluid that have passed the first wiper blade, from the photoconductive surface (16).

An image forming apparatus includes a potential applier, a cleaning device and a hardware processor. The cleaning device includes an abutting member abutting a surface of the image carrier and removes residual toner on the surface of the image carrier by means of the abutting member after a toner image formed on the surface of the image carrier is transferred to a transfer material. In a cleaning mode for removing a foreign matter attached to the abutting member of the cleaning device, the hardware processor controls the potential applier to alternately apply a first potential and a second potential which is lower than the first potential to the image carrier so as to periodically change a potential of the abutting member without causing saturation.

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a charging unit, a developing unit, a transfer unit, and a brush member arranged to be in contact with the image bearing member at a position downstream of a transfer portion and upstream of a charging portion in a direction of rotation of the image bearing member. The brush member includes a base body and a filament portion that is supported by the base body and that is configured to come into contact with the image bearing member. 50% or more of filaments of the filament portion are crimped yarn. The filaments of the crimped yarn are arranged in a dispersed manner over an entire range of the filament portion in the direction of rotation of the image bearing member.

An elastic deformation rate of a photoconductor, an additive amount of inorganic fine particles, and a rotary member are set to satisfy a relation of 0.6(D/(AB/C))/(1+E/20)0.82, where A is a thickness of fibers of a brush, B is a bristle density of the fibers of the brush, C is a length of the fibers of the brush, D is an elastic deformation rate obtained from a hardness test conducted using a Vickers diamond pyramid indenter at a temperature of 23 C. and a humidity of 50%, and E is the additive amount of the inorganic fine particles relative to 100 parts by mass of toner particles.