Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Composite – Of polyester
Reexamination Certificate
2003-01-21
2004-04-20
Chen, Vivian (Department: 1773)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Composite
Of polyester
C428S195100, C430S018000, C528S302000, C528S305000, C528S308000, C528S308600, C528S308700
Reexamination Certificate
active
06723444
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image recording material having an image formed (recorded) by an image-forming device in an electrophotographic system and an image display material using said image recording material.
2. Description of the Related Art
As image-forming techniques have been developed in recent years, methods of forming images of similar qualitiy inexpensively in large amounts by various printing methods such as intaglio printing, letterpress printing, planographic printing, gravure printing and screen printing are known. In particular, screen-printing can highly accurately produce printed materials (commodities) of highly sophisticated design, such as displays or membrane switches for household appliances, various labels, the clock faces, outdoor signboards, posters and scarves. It is assumed that these printed materials are used not only in ordinary indoor environments (office environments) but also outdoors, and thus there is demand for high heat resistance at a temperature of about 100° C. and high light resistance to sunlight (mainly UV rays). Accordingly, when printed materials to be used outdoors are formed by screen printing, a pigment-based ink excellent in heat resistance and light resistance so as not to deteriorate the qualities of images at a temperature of about 100° C. for several hundreds hours or in a light resistance testing machine such as a sunshine meter or a fade meter for several hundreds hours is selected and used, in consideration of the fact that the printed materials are to be used under UV rays or sunrays.
Screen printing requires many printing plates in accordance with the number of images to be printed, and color printing requires additional printing plates in accordance with the number of colors. In particular, printed materials of highly sophisticated design are required often in a small number of different forms (production of a small number of different kinds of printed materials) so that the printing plates must be remade every time shapes of the pointed materials change, or the printing plates are changed to cope with a different number of printed materials, thus requiring a large number of different kinds of printing plates. Accordingly, the production of printed materials of highly sophisticated design by screen printing has a problem, in that storage and handling of a large number of printing plates require a lot of trouble and time.
In the screen printing process, organic solvents and the like are contained in the ink, so that not only the influence of the organic soluvents on the human body but also environmental pollution should be taken into consideration. Further, drying of these organic solvents requires enormous energy and time for drying, and causes a reduction in productivity. In order to utilize the printing plate repeatedly, the printing plate must be washed, thus requiring a large amount of organic solvents for the washing. When the printing plate is replaced, a screen printing head stained with previously-used ink should also be replaced, and cleaning the head requires time, leading to a further reduction in productivity.
On the other hand, formation (printing) of an image in the electrophotographic system is conducted by charging an image carrier uniformly and exposing it to light in accordance with an image signal, to form an electrostatic latent image by a potential difference between an exposed portion and a non-exposed portion, followed by electrostatic development of a color powder (image forming material) called a toner having polarity opposite to the charge thereby forming a visuable image (toner image). In the case of a color image, this process is repeatedly carried out to form visual color images which are then transferred and fixed (mainly by cooling the previously thermally melted color powder), to obtain a color image.
As described above, the electrostatic latent image on the image carrier is electrically formed using an image signal in the electrophotographic system, thus permitting not only the same image to be repeatedly formed but also different image to be easily formed. Further, the toner image on the image carrier can be transferred almost completely to the image recording material, and the slight amount of toner image remaining on the image carrier can be easily removed by a resin blade or a brush, and thus printed materials can be produced easily in a small number of different forms.
The toner is formed typically by mixing additives such as hot-melt resin, a pigment, and, if necessary, a charge controlling agent, and pulverizing the mixture through milling. As compared with the pulverized toner, the electrostatic latent image in the electrophotographic system has sufficiently high resolution, and can be expected to have sufficiently high resolution, even compared to screen printing.
Further, the color toner has four primary colors of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, and by mixing these colors, any color identical to those in printing can be theoretically obtained. Further, the color toner can be arbitrarily blended with a toner resin and a pigment, and thus the shielding of an image by the toner can be easily increased. Further, when a small number of required colors are required, single-color toners can be layered for further increasing the shielding of the image.
It is assumed that the image-recording material (printing paper) of the electrophotographic system will be used in the general office environment, that is, at a temperature of 10° C. to 30° C. under about 15% to 85% humidity, and therefore, there has been almost no examination of heat resistance and light, which resistance assumes that the image-recording material will be used outdoors. In the formation of a color image in the electrophotographic system, however, pigments of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which have excellent light resistance are being used, so the image recording material in the electrophotographic system can be expected to be highly light resistant. When a heat-resistant toner is selected, it is thought that the image recording material can also be endowed with heat resistance to such an extent as to be usable outdoors.
As compared with silk screening, the formation of an image with the electrophotographic system requires no planographic plate as described above, and different, vivid images can be easily produced. Therefore, the image recording material in the electrophotographic system is used under various situations. recent topics in the medical field are a name card (with a photograph of a face), which is used for confirmation of a medical worker, and a display material, which has a photograph of a face and is recently being attached to a bed of a hospitalized patient in order to identify the patient, thus preventing mistakes in treatment. The displaying material using a printing paper can be easily forged, easily damaged and easily combusted, and therefore, printing of the display material on a film or plate is desired. Moreover, in consideration of pathogenic microorganisms in the hospital, such as MRSA, there is also a demand for imparting the display material with functions such as microbial resistance and flame retardancy. Further, when the surface of the indicating material is glossy like a photographic paper, the surface thereof may be poor in visibility because of light reflection depending on the viewing angle. Accordingly, it is also desired that the gloss of the surface be suppressed to improve visibility.
In the electrophotographic system, however, when an image-forming substrate is made of a thin film, an image cannot follow flexing of the film when a sufficient amount of a toner is fixed as the image. This causes a problem such as cracking on the surface of the image. In the electrophotographic system, fixing temperature and fixing pressure are sufficiently applied by a fixing roller at the time of fixation process, and thus the toner is sufficiently melted to obtain a high-gloss (color) image having a flat surface. The high-gloss c
Kobayashi Tomoo
Sakurai Kunio
Torikoshi Kaoru
Chen Vivian
Fuji 'Xerox Co., Ltd.
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
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