JPH01130166A - Manufacture of photosensitive body - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a good-quality image by treating a substrate substantially by ozone alone before forming a photosensitive layer. CONSTITUTION:The substrate 1 is cleaned of organic matter by supporting the shaft of the substrate 1 with supporting members 8 in a chamber 7, introducing a gaseous mixture 3 of ozone and oxygen is introduced into the chamber 7 from an ozonizer 2 through an introduction pipe 11, and treating the substrate 1 substantially by ozone alone before forming the photosensitive layer on the substrate 1 in manufacturing a photosensitive body, thus permitting the organic matter, such as a cutting oil, attached to the substrate 1 to be decomposed, gasified, and removed in the ozone atmosphere by the ozone strong in oxidation action, the substrate 1 to be cleaned, and consequently, a high-quality image small in defect to be obtained.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION A. Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a photoreceptor, for example, a method for manufacturing a photoreceptor for electrophotography.

Prior Art Electrophotographic photoreceptors are widely used in which a photosensitive layer is formed on a drum-shaped conductive substrate, and aluminum alloys are widely used as the material for this conductive substrate. There is. The properties required for this aluminum alloy are:
It has excellent machinability when finishing the drum surface, the surface quality after cutting is good and there are no surface defects caused by crystallized phases, etc., and there is little dimensional change when forming the photosensitive layer. It will be done. Particularly in recent years, it has been pointed out that electrophotographic copying performance is greatly influenced not only by the characteristics of the photosensitive layer but also by the material characteristics of the aluminum alloy used for the substrate drum and the surface properties of the substrate.

For example, 3003 alloy has good machinability, but the surface quality after cutting is not good. This alloy is 1.0-1
．． Contains 5% by weight of manganese. The eutectic point of the aluminum-manganese system is 1.82% by weight manganese,
At room temperature, manganese hardly dissolves in solid solution in aluminum (α phase), and a coarse AlaMn phase precipitates. These intermetallic compounds generally have high hardness, and during cutting, they may fall off and form recesses on the surface, scratches may appear on the surface, or they may float on the surface in the form of islands, resulting in changes in surface quality. leading to deterioration of In addition to the above AJ6Mn phase, aluminum alloys generally contain iron, silicon, magnesium, copper, etc. as impurities or as alloying elements, and these include FeAl 3 phase, Si phase, β phase (A13Mgz or A 9 Mg S), Mg 2 S
The i phase and the θ phase (solid solution of CuA12) are coarsely precipitated or crystallized, and these have the same effect as the Al 6M n phase described above. In addition to these intermetallic compounds, bubbles caused by hydrogen contained in the molten metal during casting are generated near the surface (called pristar), which appear on the surface after cutting and form recesses, worsening the surface quality. There is.

As a base drum that solves the above-mentioned problems, we have developed a base drum material that suppresses the crystallization of coarse crystallized substances (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 61-1
No. 59544, No. 61-177347) and a base drum material that suppresses the generation of bubbles due to hydrogen (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6
1-139634) has been proposed.

However, even with a photoreceptor in which a photosensitive layer is provided on a base drum in which the material is selected to prevent depressions or scratches caused by intermetallic compounds or air bubbles from being observed on the surface, there is no image on the resulting image. Defects appear. It has been recognized that this image defect, which occurs as a white spot on an entirely black image, is caused by organic matter adhering to the surface of the base drum. The above organic matter is caused by cutting oil adhering to the surface of the base drum during cutting.
It is oxidized and has become strongly fixed.

Conventionally, this deposit has been removed from the substrate by immersing the substrate in the following cleaning solution.

(1) Ultrasonic cleaning using an organic solvent; ultrasonic cleaning in a hot medium bath; rinsing in a coolant bath; final cleaning and drying by steam cleaning in a steam bath;

If necessary, a heating medium tank may be added or a surfactant may be added to the solvent.

The following solvents are used:

(i) Chlorinated solvents nitrichlorethylene, perchlorethylene, methylene chloride, 1,1.1 trichloroethane (ii) Fluorine-based solvents: Freon-113, Freon-112
, other fluorocarbon-based mixed solvents (iii) Other systems: benzene, toluene, isopropyl alcohol, methanol, ethanol, acetone This method has weak cleaning power, and the above-mentioned deposits may be removed, especially on substrates that have been left for a long time after cutting. On the other hand, there are problems in that organic solvents have almost no cleaning power, are not good for the human body, and worsen the working environment.

(2) Chemical cleaning using acids, alkalis, etc. The following cleaning liquids are used.

(i) Acids: sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, phosphoric acid, hydrofluoric acid, chromic acid (removal of scale, decomposition of oxides) (ii)
Alkali: NaOH, NaCO3, NaHCOa,
Na5PO+, Na2HPO4, Na4P2O7 (sodium pyrophosphate) (protein decomposition, degreasing effect) (iii) Peroxide: hydrogen peroxide, sodium perborate (oxidative decomposition effect) This method corrodes the surface of the substrate and changes the surface condition. There is a risk that the electrophotographic properties of the photoreceptor may be deteriorated. This has a particularly bad effect on mirror-finished substrates. Attempts to avoid this problem tend to result in incomplete cleaning. Further, since the cleaning ability changes depending on the concentration of the cleaning liquid, managing the cleaning liquid becomes extremely troublesome.

However, with any of the above-mentioned cleaning methods, it is difficult to completely remove the deposits adhering to the substrate, and the deposits remain on the surface of the substrate. It is believed that this deposit locally changes the electrophotographic characteristics of the photoreceptor and causes the above-mentioned image defects on the image.

Such problems exist not only in aluminum alloy substrates but also in nickel, iron, and copper substrates.

Before forming the photosensitive layer on the substrate, remove as much dirt from the cutting oil as possible from the surface of the substrate so as not to adversely affect the electrophotographic properties of the photoreceptor, and to avoid reducing the yield of photoreceptor production. However, due to the above reasons, conventional cleaning methods cannot fully meet this demand.

Purpose of the Invention The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and includes:
A photoreceptor that can sufficiently remove undesirable deposits on the substrate without adversely affecting the substrate, allowing high-quality images to be obtained, as well as providing easy operational management and a good working environment. The purpose is to provide a manufacturing method for.

28 Structure of the Invention The present invention provides a method for manufacturing a photoreceptor, in which, when manufacturing a photoreceptor by forming a photosensitive layer on a substrate, the substrate is treated substantially only with ozone before forming the photosensitive layer. Pertains to.

The base body may be a cylindrical base body made of a conductive material, such as metal, or a base body in the form of an endless belt, for example, made by covering a layer of the conductive material on a plastic sheet, paper, or the like.

E, Example The present invention will be explained in detail below.

Ozone (03) has a strong oxidizing effect and oxidizes, decomposes and gasifies organic substances. Therefore, in an ozone atmosphere, organic substances such as cutting oil are decomposed and removed, and the substrate becomes clean.

As a method for generating ozone, known methods such as a silent discharge method, an electrolysis method, and an ultraviolet irradiation method (a method in which oxygen is irradiated with ultraviolet rays of 185.0 nm or less) can be employed.

It is effective to set the ozone concentration in the processing atmosphere to 100 ppm or more. Processing time is 3-5 hours.

A photosensitive layer is provided on the substrate cleaned as described above to form a photoreceptor. As the photosensitive layer, in addition to inorganic materials such as amorphous selenium, zinc oxide, cadmium sulfide, indium-tin oxide, and amorphous silicon, a functionally separated organic photosensitive layer consisting of a carrier-generating substance and a carrier-transporting substance is applied. Ru.

Next, specific examples will be described.

FIG. 1 is a schematic front view (partially in section) showing the main parts of an ozone substrate processing apparatus.

A mixed gas 3 of ozone and oxygen is supplied to the base 1 whose shaft portion is supported by a support column 8 in the chamber 7 from a silent discharge type ozone generator 2 via an introduction pipe 11 communicating with the chamber 7. Supplied.

Further, an exhaust pipe 12 connected to the chamber 7 is connected to an exhaust treatment device.

The base 1 is set in the chamber 7, and the valves 14 and 15 are opened. Next, turn on the ozone generator 2 and open the chamber 7.
A mixed gas 3 is introduced into the chamber to obtain a predetermined ozone concentration. The ozone concentration is measured with an ozone concentration meter 4, and the output of the ozone generator 2 is increased or the discharge valve 16 is adjusted as necessary. The ozone decomposes organic substances such as cutting oil adhering to the surface of the substrate 1, is consumed and a portion becomes oxygen, and the used mixed gas is discharged via the valve 16 and the discharge pipe 12.

The processing conditions are as follows.

Substrate material Nialuminum alloy Substrate shape and dimensions: Outer diameter 60 m, length 250 mm Ozone concentration of mixed gas: 200 ppm Processing time after reaching the predetermined ozone concentration: 3 hours Clean as above. A functionally separated organic photosensitive layer, which is shown in an enlarged view in FIG. 2, was formed on the drum-shaped substrate prepared as a photoreceptor. In the figure, 1 is a base, 21 is an intermediate layer, 22 is a carrier generation layer, and 23 is a carrier transport layer.

For comparison, the substrate was cleaned by ultrasonic cleaning by immersing it in trichlorethylene in a hot medium bath, followed by sequential treatment in a coolant bath and a steam bath, and the rest was carried out in the same manner as in the previous example. Similar tests were conducted on the manufactured photoreceptor.

As a result, when using a photoreceptor that had gone through the conventional ultrasonic cleaning process using an organic solvent, it was found that 20 pieces per recording paper were used.
Image defects of d m 2 or more appeared. On the other hand, when the photoreceptor of this example was used, the above defects were not observed.

In addition to the embodiments described above, various modifications are possible based on the technical idea of the present invention. For example, during the treatment with ozone, it is advantageous to rotate the substrate in order to improve the contact between the substrate and the ozone in the mixed gas, since this can shorten the treatment time. Further, in addition to aluminum alloy, conductive metals such as nickel, copper, iron, or alloys thereof may be used as the base material.

As described in detail, the present invention effectively decomposes and removes organic matter such as cutting oil attached to a substrate by the oxidizing action of ozone, and removes undesirable substances attached to the substrate. The deposits are sufficiently removed and the substrate becomes clean. As a result, a photoreceptor formed by forming a photosensitive layer on a substrate subjected to this treatment,
Local changes in electrophotographic properties caused by the above-mentioned undesirable deposits are suppressed, and images obtained using this photoreceptor are
It will be of high quality with few defects.

Furthermore, since the present invention cleans the substrate without using conventional wet cleaning, the cleaning process is simplified and

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings all show embodiments of the present invention. Figure 1 is a schematic front view (some parts) showing the main parts of the ozone substrate processing apparatus. Figure 2 is an enlarged sectional view of the photoreceptor. be. In addition, in the symbols shown in the drawings, 1...Base 2...Ozone generator 3...Ozone-oxygen mixture Gas 4...
...Ozone concentration meter 5 ...Oxygen cylinder 7 ...Chamber 11 ...Mixed gas introduction pipe 12 ...・
...Mixed gas discharge pipe 21...Middle layer 22...Carrier generation layer 23...
...This is a carrier transport layer.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A method for producing a photoreceptor, in which a photoreceptor is manufactured by forming a photoreceptor on a substrate, and the substrate is treated substantially only with ozone before forming the photoreceptor layer.