A lubricant composition fed to an intermediate transfer belt in an intermediate transfer-type electrophotographic image forming method includes solid lubricant particles that are inorganic compound particles having an average size of 120 nm or less and a binder disposed on surfaces of the solid lubricant particles. The content of the binder is 0.01% by mass or more and 20.00% by mass or less of the amount of the lubricant composition.

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a transfer member, a supplying member for supplying a protective agent applied onto a surface of the transfer member, and a controller capable of controlling the supplying member. In a state in which the transfer member contacts the image bearing member during non-image formation outside of image formation in which the toner image is transferred from the image bearing member onto the recording material, the controller carries out control so that an operation in an application mode, in which the protective agent supplied from the supplying member is applied onto the surface of the transfer member, is executed.

A belt feeding device includes a belt, a first roller, an opposing roller, a second roller, and a brush roller. (|D2sD2m|/2)10(|D2sD2m|/2)(b/(a+b)) is satisfied, where D2m is a minimum diameter of the first roller, D2s is a maximum diameter of the first roller, is an entering amount of the opposing roller into the brush roller with respect to a reference line A between a portion of the first roller having the minimum diameter D2m and the second roller, a is a distance between a line passing through a rotation center of the first roller and a line passing through a rotation center of the opposing roller, and b is a distance between a line passing through a rotation center of the second roller and a line passing through the rotation center of the opposing roller.

An image forming apparatus includes a cleaning unit for a transfer roller. A cleaning unit includes a brush roller, a rotatable member, a first blade and a second blade. The brush roller is electroconductive and contactable with the transfer roller while rotating to electrostatically attract the toner from the transfer roller. The rotatable member is supplied with a voltage of the regular charge polarity of the toner and is contacted with the brush roller in a contact position to electrostatically attract the toner from the brush roller. The first blade contacts the rotatable member in a cleaning portion to scrape a deposited matter from the rotatable member. The second blade is disposed downstream of the cleaning portion and upstream of the contact portion and scrape the deposited matter from the rotatable member with the rotation of the rotatable member.

An image forming apparatus includes a member-to-be-cleaned, a first cleaner unit including a first attracting member, a first rotatable member and a first blade member, a second cleaner unit including a second attracting member, a second rotatable member and a second blade member, and a feeding member. The feeding member rotates around its rotational axis and is provided vertically below a first position where a toner drops by gravitation and a second position where the toner drops by gravitation. The feeding member is disposed such that vertical lines passing through the first position and the second position cross the feeding member.

An image forming apparatus includes a conveyance unit conveying a recording medium in contact with the recording medium's one surface along a conveyance path, a first image forming group, a second image forming group, a first intermediate transfer body being transferred a toner image formed by the first image forming group, a second intermediate transfer body being transferred a toner image formed by the second image forming group, a first transfer unit transferring the toner image from the first intermediate transfer body to the recording medium's other surface, and a second transfer unit transferring the toner image from the second intermediate transfer body to the recording medium's other surface. The first image forming group, the first intermediate transfer body, the second intermediate transfer body, and the second image forming group are located the other surface side of the recording medium in this order in a conveyance direction.

A transfer belt includes a substrate layer that includes polyester, silicone particles, and conductive particles.

An electrophotographic belt is provided, which includes a base layer and a surface layer in direct contact with the base layer, wherein the surface layer includes heteroaggregates of a first particle and a second particle, the first particle is at least one selected from the group consisting of a hollow silica particle and a solid silica particle, and has a number-average particle diameter of primary particles, which is greater than 30 nm and less than 100 nm, the second particle contains a conductive metal oxide, and has a number-average particle diameter of primary particles, which is 5 nm to 40 nm, the surface layer has protruded portions derived from the heteroaggregates on an outer surface opposite to the surface facing the base layer, an arithmetic mean height (Sa) of the outer surface is 0.1 m to 0.7 m, and the base layer includes specific cation and anion.

A transfer device includes: an endless transfer belt that circulates and receives an image; one image carrier that carries an image and is in contact with an outer circumferential surface of the transfer belt from above; another image carrier that carries an image and is in contact with the outer circumferential surface of the transfer belt from below; one transfer roller that holds the transfer belt with respect to the one image carrier to transfer the image carried on the one image carrier to the transfer belt, the one transfer roller including one cylindrical roller part; and another transfer roller that holds the transfer belt with respect to the other image carrier to transfer the image carried on the other image carrier to the transfer belt, the other transfer roller including another cylindrical roller part. The one roller part and the other roller part protrude at central portions thereof in the axial direction with respect to ends thereof in the axial direction. The amount of protrusion at the central portion of the other roller part is smaller than the amount of protrusion at the central portion of the one roller part.

An image forming apparatus includes a photoreceptor that holds a toner image to be transferred to a paper sheet, a charger that charges a surface of the photoreceptor, a developer that supplies toner to the surface of the photoreceptor, a cleaning unit that collects toner stuck to the photoreceptor, and a unit that changes a positional relationship between the photoreceptor and the charger and/or a positional relationship between the photoreceptor and the cleaning unit under a predetermined condition after the photoreceptor stops.