US Patent 7489327 Toner adsorption image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus that may be easily and inexpensively manufactured is provided. The image forming apparatus includes: a toner supply unit; an image forming element to which toner is adsorbed from the toner supply unit; an image developing unit disposed on an outer side of the image forming element, wherein said image developing unit selectively separates from the image forming element at least a part of the toner adsorbed to the image forming element in order to develop an image on the image forming element; and a toner return unit which returns the toner separated from the image forming element by the image developing unit to the toner supply unit.