JPS612179A - Package cleaner for electrophotographic sensitive body - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a packaged cleaner capable of removing contaminant deposited on the surface of an electrophotographic sensitive body effectively by packing a piece of fiber material impregnated with a solvent having a solubility parameter above a specified value as cleaner in a pack to be sealed coated with a thermoplastic hot-melt layer having a solubility parameter below a specified value on the inside surface. CONSTITUTION:a piece 1 of a base material comprising cotton nonwoven fabric gauze or cotton fiber gauze, etc. is impregnated with a solvent mixture having solubility parameter above ca. 9 consisting essentially of methyl ethyl ketone and contg. a solvent having higher solubility such as ethyl acetate, toluene, etc. The piece 1 of the base material (cleaner) is packed in a three-layered laminated package 5 coated with a thermoplastic hot-melt layer 3 comprising polyethylene, etc. having <=8 solubility parameter on the inside surface, with an intermediate metallic foil layer 7 and an external covering layer 8 having protective mechanical property and printability comprising polyester film, etc. to obtain a packaged cleaner provided with a sealed bag part 2. By this constitution, a cleaner for surface contaminant of an electrophotographic sensitive body is obtd. saving troubles for prepg. each time and preventing contamination of environment by the vaporization of org. solvent.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Technical field to which the invention pertains]

The present invention relates to a cleaning agent for removing a surface staining substance such as a contaminated film caused by a dry developer attached to the surface of an electrophotographic photoreceptor or an abrasive used to remove the contaminated film.

[Prior art and its problems]

When an electrophotographic photoreceptor such as a dry type electronic copying machine is used repeatedly, a dry developer made of a pigment such as carbon black treated with a thermoplastic resin such as polystyrene adheres to the surface of the photoreceptor and forms a film. In addition, the surface of the photoreceptor is altered due to the corona discharge to charge the photoreceptor surface and the products accompanying the corona discharge.Therefore, the altered layer and attached substances on the photoreceptor surface are removed using an abrasive. In addition to periodically polishing the surface using a cleaning agent, it is necessary to clean the adhering substances and remaining abrasive using a cleaning material made of absorbent cotton or gauze soaked in a solvent that has the property of dissolving adhering substances. Conventional materials include methyl ethyl ketone,
ethanol,!・Contains 4 types of luene, acetone, xylene, etc.
'! A piece of base material such as absorbent cotton or gauze is soaked with J-glue in the form of a single piece of wood or a mixed solvent prepared at a predetermined ratio. , methods are used to maintain the photoreceptor so that high-quality images can be obtained again. However, the industrial safety and health law for all of the above-mentioned organic solvents has a permissible deepness standard value (approximately 100 to 200P, Pm) determined in the working environment, and their storage locations and management methods are also regulated. There is C. However, while using U2, the organic solvent contained and stored in the reagent bottle is immersed into a base material piece of any size for 71 minutes.
! In conventional work methods, the amount of I'a agent used is far greater than the amount of solvent required for T'/'q cleaning. # Since there is a lot of cleaning and there are many opportunities to spray the solvent, there is a drawback that the degree of contamination of the working environment becomes higher than necessary. Furthermore, even if the manufacturer specifies the amount of solvent required for cleaning the photoreceptor, it is extremely troublesome for the operator to prepare and use the solvent each time the cleaning operation is performed, and it is difficult to carry out the cleaning process. The problem is that it is difficult.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned situation, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a packaged cleaning material that can efficiently perform cleaning work using an appropriate amount of pre-mixed solvent necessary for cleaning a photoreceptor. With the goal.

[Key points of the invention]

The cleaning material of the present invention is a cleaning material obtained by impregnating a fiber base material piece such as cotton nonwoven fabric or gauze with an amount of solvent suitable for one time cleaning of an electrophotographic photoreceptor, and a heat-sealing layer with excellent solvent resistance. This was achieved by configuring the package to be hermetically sealed using a sealing section made of a three-layer laminated packaging material consisting of a metal film layer with good gas impermeability and light shielding properties, and an outer covering layer with good scratch resistance and printability. By using a mixed solvent with a solubility parameter of approximately 9 or less as the solvent and a plastic film with a solubility parameter of approximately 8 or less as the heat-sealing film, evaporation of the solvent is prevented and the heat-sealing film is This prevents the solvent from dissolving in the solvent.

[Embodiments of the invention]

The present invention will be explained below based on practical examples. FIGS. 1 and 2 are structural diagrams of a packaged cleaning material showing a practical example of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the cleaning material including a partially broken surface, and FIG. FIG. In the figure, 1 is a cotton nonwoven fabric coated with an organic solvent. A cleaning material made by impregnating a piece of base material made of gauze cotton fibers, in which several layers of base material of a size suitable for cleaning a photoreceptor are impregnated with an amount of solvent suitable for one cleaning. be. Reference numeral 2 denotes a bag sealing section, which is made of a laminated packaging material 5. By heating the sealing section 3 around the bag sealing section 2, the laminated packaging material 5 is sealed.
The heat-sealing layer is heat-sealed, and the cleaning material 1 is sealed and packaged. In addition, as the laminate packaging material 5 forming the bag sealing part, a three-layer structure consisting of a heat sealing layer 6, a metal foil layer 7, and an outer cover layer 8 is suitable. The metal foil layer 7 maintains solvent resistance, sealing performance after heat fusion, and heat fusion strength.
This ensures suppression of solvent vapor volatilization and light shielding properties, and the outer coating layer 8 ensures opportunistic protection and excellent printability. Next, a specific example of the configuration of a sachet-type cleaning material having the above-mentioned various performances and the results of verifying the performance will be explained. Cleaning material 1: multiple pieces of cotton gauze base material somewhat smaller than official postcards (manufactured by Fukkasei, trade name: Henkotsu S), 2 liters of ethanol, 1 liter of methyl ethyl ketone (abbreviated as MEK)
A laminate packaging material impregnated with a mixed solvent consisting of 5m71 and having a three-layer structure consisting of a heat-sealing layer 6 made of polypropylene film, a metal foil layer 7 made of aluminum foil, and an outer covering layer 8 made of polyester film. 5
(manufactured by Sunny Chemical Co., Ltd., trade name: SANILON R) to form the sealing part 2, and the sachet-shaped cleaning material 2 of the size of a government postcard was formed. Table 1 is a characteristic table that examines the changes over time in the mass and appearance of the sachet-shaped cleaning material formed as described above. After being left for storage, the storage stability was investigated by looking at changes in mass and appearance. Table 1 shows that the mass change of the packaged cleaning material decreased by only 0.3% even after being left for 6 months, indicating that the amount of solvent leaking to the outside through the sealed bag was small. We were able to demonstrate sufficient sealing performance for practical use as a packaged cleaning material, and as no change was observed in the appearance, we were able to demonstrate its excellent shelf life as a packaged cleaning material. Ta. Table 1 and Table 2 are characteristic tables showing the cleaning results of the photoconductor using the packaged cleaning material after storage for 6 months, including the charging characteristics of the photoconductor before and after cleaning a new photoconductor, and the clarity of the copied image. This is a comparison of degrees. First, the potential when the photoconductor is charged by corona discharge in a dark state and the potential retention rate when the discharge is stopped show high values both before and after cleaning, and furthermore, when the entire photoconductor is exposed to light, the residual potential is 15%. The value was as low as ~20V, and the resulting image was sufficiently clear and 6
It has been demonstrated that the packaged cleaning material left for several months has sufficient cleaning ability for practical use, and the polypropylene layer of cotton gauze and laminated packaging materials (
It was possible to demonstrate that the heat-sealing layer) contained almost no soluble substances that would contaminate the solvent. Table 2 Next, the points of view of the present invention that led to the construction of the excellent packaged cleaning material as described above will be explained. First, the amount of storage agent (suitable for one time cleaning of the photoreceptor) and the size of the base material piece can be known empirically, so if the cleaning material determined in this way is supplied in the form of a bag, ,
In addition to saving labor in cleaning work, it is also possible to obtain the function of minimizing contamination of the working environment due to organic solvent vapor. This method of hermetically packaging a single dose is widely known in the pharmaceutical and food fields, but the present invention has the advantage of hermetically packaging an extremely soluble and highly volatile organic solvent. It is fundamentally different from products in the above fields. That is, in the present invention, as an organic solvent used for cleaning the photoreceptor, it is necessary to include in the cleaning material a solvent that has high solubility for polystyrene resin contained in a dry developer, and also laminate packaging material, etc. For the heat-sealing layer that comes into direct contact with the cutting process, it is necessary to select a thermoplastic film that is not easily attacked by the above-mentioned solvents. Therefore, when selecting a solvent, we selected an organic solvent with an sp value as close as possible to the solubility parameter (hereinafter referred to as sp value) of 9.15 of polypropylene resin, such as M
EK (9,3') ethyl acetate (9,1), ) toluene (8,9), xylene (8,8) and other base ingredients with high solubility in polystyrene resin are selected and applied to the heat-sealing layer of laminated packaging materials. For example, polypropylene resin (13,0) is used as a thermoplastic plastic film having an sp value that is about 1 or more different from the sp value of about 9 of the organic solvent.
By selecting polyethylene (7,9-B,1), etc., a sealed bag portion that is difficult to be attacked by 89-based solvents was constructed. In addition, the solvent is ethanol (S), which has slightly lower volatility than the main ingredient.
P value 12.7) Adjust the volatility of the solvent by adding a small amount,
It is configured to facilitate wiping off contaminants on the surface of the photoreceptor, and also has a sp value as a mixed solvent and $ of a thermal adhesive layer.
It is now possible to adjust so that the difference from the P value is 1 or more. As shown in Tables 1 and 2, the performance of the packaged cleaning material made from the combination of the solvent and laminated packaging material selected in this way is as shown in Tables 1 and 2. We were able to solve the technical problem of packaging cleaning materials containing highly volatile and highly volatile organic solvents. It should be noted that the above-mentioned practical example shows an example of a suitable combination of materials of the present invention, and it goes without saying that the combination of the solvent and the packaging material is not limited.

【Effect of the invention】

As described above, the present invention uses a cleaning material obtained by impregnating a piece of cotton base material with an organic solvent having an SP value close to the SP value of polystyrene resin contained in a dry developer as a cleaning material for an electrophotographic photoreceptor. (11! Cleans the adhesion layer on the surface of the photoreceptor and the abrasive by sealing it in a sealed bag made of a laminated packaging material with a heat-adhesive layer of a thermoplastic film containing at least one organic solvent) It is possible to provide a packaged cleaning material that has excellent properties, has excellent storage stability because it does not attack the base material or sealing part, and does not stain the photoreceptor. Since the amount of cleaning material suitable for cleaning can be provided, it is possible to prevent excessive contamination of the working environment with organic solvents in conventional technology, and contribute to reducing the concentration of organic solvents in the working environment and saving labor for cleaning work. .

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a packaged cleaning material showing an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a side view of the packaged cleaning material. 1: Cleaning material (base material piece), 2: Bag sealing part, 3: Heat sealing part, 4
; Heat sealing surface, 5; Laminated packaging material, 6: Heat sealing layer, 7
: metal foil layer, 8: outer covering layer.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) A cleaning material consisting of a base material piece made of a fibrous material, an organic solvent impregnated into this base material piece and having a solubility parameter value of approximately 9, and an inner surface having a solubility parameter value of approximately 8. A packaged cleaning method for an electrophotographic photoreceptor, characterized in that it is made of a laminate packaging material having the following thermoplastic heat-adhesive layer and is heat-sealed to enclose the cleaning material: Material. 2) The packaged cleaning material for an electrophotographic photoreceptor according to claim 1, wherein the organic solvent is a mixed solvent containing methyl ethyl ketone as a main ingredient. 3. In the product described in claim 1, the bag sealing part is made of a laminate packaging material with a three-layer structure of a polypropylene resin layer, an aluminum foil layer, and a polyester resin layer,
A packaged cleaning material for electrophotographic photoreceptors, characterized in that a polypropylene resin layer is heat-sealed.