JP4397138B2 - Toner manufacturing method - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a toner manufacturing method and a toner manufacturing apparatus for efficiently and stably manufacturing toner used in electrophotography, electrostatic recording, and the like.
[0002]
[Prior art]
The toner or colored resin powder used for image formation by electrophotography or the like usually contains at least a binder resin and a colorant. The toner develops the electrostatic image formed on the latent image carrier, the formed toner image is transferred to a transfer material such as plain paper or plastic film, and the toner image on the transfer material is heated. An image is formed by being fixed on a transfer material by a fixing device such as a fixing unit, a pressure roller fixing unit, or a heat and pressure roller fixing unit. Therefore, the binder resin used for the toner has a characteristic of plastic deformation when heat and / or pressure is applied. At present, the toner or colored resin powder is prepared by first melt-kneading a mixture containing at least a binder resin, which is a toner material, and a colorant (optionally further containing a third component). It is prepared by rolling and cooling into a cooled product, roughly pulverizing the cooled product, further pulverizing the coarsely pulverized raw material, and classifying the obtained pulverized product. In the case of pulverizing and classifying the coarsely pulverized material for toner, a toner manufacturing apparatus or a system for integrally performing pulverization and classification in which a pulverizer and a classifier are connected by a pipe such as a pipe is generally used. . At that time, a cyclone collector / tank or a bag filter is used as a means for collecting toner products such as an intermediate product of toner or a final product of toner.
[0003]
On the other hand, the recent needs for toner for developing electrostatic images are as follows: 1) From the viewpoint of energy saving, the toner can be melted at a lower temperature; 2) From the viewpoint of improving the image quality, the toner has smaller particles. The diameter is particularly required. When such a toner is manufactured, there arises a problem that the toner is fused, fixed and adhered to a manufacturing apparatus or the like at the time of manufacture. In particular, such a phenomenon is likely to occur in an inner wall portion of a transport piping member for transporting a toner powder material or an inner wall portion of a cyclone collector / tank or bag filter for collecting a toner product. As one method in such a case, it has been studied to coat the inner wall surface of a pipe or the inner wall surface of a cyclone collector / tank or bag filter with a fluororesin. However, when the toner powder material is transported, the toner powder material is repeatedly contacted and collided with the inner wall surface of the transport piping member, and is collected when the toner powder material is collected. The compaction phenomenon occurred due to the weight of the powder material for toner, and fusion, fixation, and adhesion occurred. This phenomenon was slightly improved by applying a fluororesin coating on the inner wall of the cyclone collector / tank or bag filter, but there was no significant change. In particular, recent toners tend to melt at a low temperature and have a smaller particle size, in which case the above problem becomes more prominent. Therefore, in the production of toner used for image formation by electrophotography or the like, a material that can be used to prevent adhesion and adhesion / adhesion of the production member used for the powder material for toner may be used. It is desired.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
Accordingly, the object of the present invention has been made in view of the above prior art, and it is possible to reduce toner adhesion to the inner wall surface of the manufacturing member and to prevent the toner from adhering and adhering, and to stably operate the toner manufacturing apparatus. Another object of the present invention is to provide a toner production method and a toner production apparatus or production system in which the quality of the obtained toner can be improved and maintained and stabilized.
[0005]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The above-described problem is (1) “for toner obtained by roughly kneading a cooling product obtained by melt-kneading a mixture containing at least a binder resin and a colorant and rolling and cooling the melt-kneaded product. A toner manufacturing method for producing a toner by further pulverizing a coarsely pulverized raw material with a mechanical pulverizer and classifying with a gas stream classifier , wherein the coarsely pulverized raw material for toner contains a polyester resin and a low molecular weight polyethylene And at least one of the inner wall surface of the transportation pipe for transporting the powder material for toner and the entire or part of the inner wall surface of the cyclone collector for collecting the toner product is a porous body. is formed, a toner manufacturing method to be characterized in that for blowing air from the porous body "(2)" that the porous body is a sintered plastics such as polyethylene polypropylene The toner production method according to item (1), characterized in that, (3) “the average opening diameter of the porous body is 2 to 200 μm, (2) Item Toner Production Method ”, (4)“ The amount of air blown from the porous body is 50 to 900 NL / min. ”(1) to (3) Any one of the above (1) to (4), wherein the toner is produced intermittently from the porous body. This is achieved by the described toner manufacturing method.
[0007]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Next, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to preferred embodiments of the present invention.
FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a toner manufacturing method according to the present invention, and is a schematic configuration diagram illustrating an example of a toner manufacturing apparatus or a manufacturing system. In FIG. 1, (1) is a pulverizer for further finely pulverizing coarsely pulverized raw materials for toner production such as an airflow pulverizer / mechanical pulverizer for toner production, and (2) is a pulverizer such as an airflow classifier. A classifier for classifying a product, and (3) is a cyclone collector for collecting a toner product such as an intermediate product of toner or a final product of toner (this part can be a tank or a bag filter). These pulverizers (1), classifiers (2), and cyclone collectors (3) are connected by a connecting piping member (4) such as a pipe. In the example shown in FIG. 1, as the connecting pipe member (4), a transport pipe (4-1) for transporting the pulverized material pulverized by the pulverizer (1) to the classifier (2), and a classifier. A transport pipe (4-2) for returning coarse particles of the toner powder material classified in (2) from the classifier (2) to the pulverizer (1); It consists of transport piping (4-3) for transporting desired fine particles to the cyclone collector (3). Then, the toner product collected by the cyclone collector (3) is sent to the next process through a transport pipe (not shown) connected to the cyclone collector (3).
[0008]
In these connecting piping members (4) and in the cyclone collector (3), the powder material is moving at a high speed of 10 m / sec or more. When the temperature of the toner becomes instantaneously high, and the toner is fused and stuck to the manufacturing member, and the toner powder material is collected by the cyclone collector (3), the collected toner powder The compaction phenomenon occurs depending on the weight of the material, and the problem of toner sticking and adhesion to the manufacturing member occurs. In the present invention, the whole or part of the inner wall surface of the connecting pipe member (4) and the cyclone collector (3) is formed of a porous body to solve the problems of toner welding, adhesion and adhesion. That is, by configuring as described above, air is blown from the surface of the porous body on the inner wall surface of the connecting pipe member (4) and the cyclone collector (3), and the toner powder material and the manufacturing member (porous) By avoiding contact and collision with the body as much as possible, it is possible to prevent an instantaneous increase in temperature of the inner wall surface during contact and collision and consolidation during collection. Examples of the porous body used in the present invention include sintered plastics such as polyethylene and polypropylene. In that case, it is appropriately selected according to the material characteristics and particle size of the toner raw material to be used. Moreover, as an average opening diameter of a porous body, it is set as the range of 2 micrometers-200 micrometers. If the average opening diameter is larger than 200 μm, the toner powder material is clogged, and the role of the porous body cannot be obtained. If the average opening diameter is smaller than 2 μm, the porous body cannot be sintered. is there.
[0009]
The amount of air blown from the porous body is 50 to 900 NL / min, preferably 200 to 450 NL / min. When the amount of blown air air exceeds 900 NL / min, the effect is the same as the amount of blown air air below that, and only energy loss increases. Moreover, if the amount of blown air is less than 50 NL / min, the effect of the porous body cannot be obtained. In addition, air blowing from the porous body is preferably intermittent, since the effect does not change compared to energy loss. The present invention is not limited to the system having the configuration shown in FIG. 1, but various transport pipes for transporting toner powder material and various cyclone collectors for collecting toner products. -It can be used for both a toner manufacturing method and a toner manufacturing apparatus using a tank or a bag filter.
[0010]
【Example】
Hereinafter, the present invention will be described more specifically with reference to comparative examples and examples. However, this does not limit the present invention in any way. In addition, all the parts in the following mixing | blending are a weight part.
[0011]
Resin Polyester resin 80 parts Colorant Carbon black 10 parts Charge control agent Salicylic acid zinc salt 5 parts Release agent Low molecular weight polyethylene 8 parts The above toner raw materials for electrostatic image development are thoroughly mixed with a mixer and then kneaded with a biaxial extruder. Melt kneading was performed at an object temperature of 130 ° C. The obtained kneaded product was rolled and cooled, and then coarsely pulverized with a hammer mill, and the coarsely pulverized product (2 mm screen-passed product) was used as a coarsely pulverized raw material for toner.
[0012]
[Example 1]
Using the above coarsely pulverized raw material for toner, pulverization and classification were performed using a toner production apparatus that integrally performs pulverization and classification as shown in FIG. As the pulverizer (1), a mechanical pulverizer, specifically, a turbo mill manufactured by Turbo Kogyo Co., Ltd. was used. As the classifier (2), an airflow classifier, specifically, an elbow jet manufactured by Nippon Steel Mining Co., Ltd. was used. The cyclone collector (3) used was made of SUS304 material. Moreover, the hollow pipe which consists of SUS304 material was used for the connection piping member (4) which connects between these grinders (1), a classifier (2), and a cyclone collector (3). In this example, the vent part (curved part) of the hollow pipe and the inner wall surface of the cyclone collector (3) were formed of a porous body and used. Using the above toner production apparatus, continuous operation was performed for one month. After the toner was manufactured, the device was disassembled and the inside of the connecting piping member and the inside of the cyclone collector were inspected. As a result, the toner was fused, adhered and adhered to the portion where the inner wall surface was formed in the porous body. The phenomenon was not seen at all. Further, after continuous operation for 3 months, the particle size of the toner product obtained during that time was stable and the quality was excellent.
[0013]
[Comparative Example 1]
The same coarsely pulverized raw material for toner as in Example 1 was used, and the coarsely pulverized raw material for toner was pulverized and classified by the same toner production apparatus shown in FIG. 1 as used in Example 1. A turbo mill manufactured by Turbo Industry Co., Ltd. was used for the pulverizer (1), and an elbow jet manufactured by Nittetsu Mining Co., Ltd. was used as the classifier as in Example 1. For comparison, the inner wall surface of each connecting pipe member (4) and the inner wall surface of the cyclone collector (3) for connecting the above pulverizer (1), classifier (2) and cyclone collector (3). In addition, SUS304 material having a buffing finish (# 300) on the surface was used. Using this system, the toner was produced by continuous operation for one month, and then disassembled to inspect the inside of the connecting pipe member (4) and the inside of the cyclone collector (3). As a result, toner fusion, adhesion, and adhesion phenomena were observed in the portion where the inner wall surface was formed of the porous body in Example 1. For this reason, there is a risk that the fused material, adhering / adhering matter of the toner may fall, and there is a problem in operating the toner manufacturing apparatus stably.
[0014]
[Comparative Example 2]
The same coarsely pulverized raw material for toner as in Example 1 was used, and the coarsely pulverized raw material for toner was pulverized and classified by the same toner production apparatus shown in FIG. 1 as used in Example 1. A turbo mill manufactured by Turbo Industry Co., Ltd. was used for the pulverizer (1), and an elbow jet manufactured by Nittetsu Mining Co., Ltd. was used as the classifier as in Example 1. For comparison, the inner wall surface of the vent part (curved part) and the cyclone collector of each connecting piping member (4) connecting the above-mentioned pulverizer (1), classifier (2) and cyclone collector (3). The inner wall surface of (3) used was a SUS304 material surface with a fluororesin coating. Using this apparatus, the toner was manufactured by performing continuous operation for one month, and then disassembled and inspected the inside of the connecting pipe member (4) and the inside of the cyclone collector (3). As a result, no toner adhesion phenomenon was observed on the inner wall surface to which the fluororesin coating was applied, but toner fusing and fixing phenomena were observed. For this reason, there is a risk that the fused or fixed matter of the toner may fall, resulting in a problem in the stable operation of the toner manufacturing apparatus.
[0015]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, as is clear from the detailed and specific description, according to the present invention, the connecting piping member and the inner wall surface of the cyclone collector / tank or bag filter used when manufacturing the toner for developing an electrostatic charge image are produced. Since the entire surface or a part thereof is formed of a porous body, it is possible to reduce toner fusion to the inner wall surface of the manufacturing member and to prevent the toner from adhering and adhering, and to stably operate the toner manufacturing apparatus. In addition, it is possible to improve the quality and maintain / stabilize the quality of the obtained toner.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a toner manufacturing method and a manufacturing apparatus for explaining the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Crusher 2 Classifier 3 Cyclone collector 4 Connection piping member 4-1 Transportation piping 4-2 Transportation piping 4-3 Transportation piping

Claims (5)

A coarsely pulverized raw material for toner obtained by melt-kneading a mixture containing at least a binder resin and a colorant and roughly pulverizing a cooled product obtained by rolling and cooling the melt-kneaded product is further obtained by a mechanical pulverizer. A toner manufacturing method for producing a toner by pulverizing and classifying with an airflow classifier , wherein the coarsely pulverized raw material for toner contains a polyester resin and low molecular weight polyethylene, and transports the powder material for toner At least one of the inner wall surface of the transportation pipe for transporting and the inner wall surface of the cyclone collector for collecting the toner product is formed of a porous body, and air is blown from the porous body. toner production method which is characterized in that those issues.   The toner manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein the porous body is a sintered plastic such as polyethylene or polypropylene.   The toner manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein the porous body has an average opening diameter of 2 to 200 μm.   The toner manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein an amount of air blown from the porous body is 50 to 900 NL / min.   The toner manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein air is intermittently blown from the porous body.

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