Patent 7603071 was granted and assigned to RICOH COMPANY,LTD. on October, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An image forming apparatus includes an image bearer that carries a toner image and a lubricant supplying device that supplies lubricant to the surface of the image bearer. The lubricant supplying device is provided in the image forming apparatus and includes a lubricant block and a brush roller. The brush roller shaves and supplies the lubricant from the lubricant block to the image bearer via the brush roller. The lubricant only includes a mixture of boron nitride and fatty acid metallic salt. The lubricant includes from 10 to 80 percent volume of the boron nitride.