| 摘要 |
PURPOSE:To execute securely heat treatment in a state of separately dispersed individual particles by passing an electrophotographic developer through a narrowed part together with a gas at a specified speed, and heat treating it. CONSTITUTION:A heating chamber 1 is exhausted with an exhausting blower 3. The intermediate material of an amorphous electrophotographic material fed to a feed inlet 7 from a feeder 15 is brought downward with a gaseous flow simultaneously introduced from the inlet 7 through a duct 5, and introduced through the inlet 6 of the developer into a heating chamber 1. At that time, the gaseous flow passing through a narrowed part 8 provided at the inlet 6 is abruptly raised in speed to about 10m/sec to become a turbulent flow, and the flocculated developer is disintegrated and enters the chamber 1. The developer particles are heated to a softening point or higher and turned into spheres with a hot air flow introduced from an opening 11 and heated with an electric heating element 14, and the attached fine particles are melted and united, and led downward. The lower end of the duct 5 is cooled with a cooling water duct 10 and prevented from depositing of the particles to the wall by melting. As a result, granulation of the intermediate material of the individual amorphous developer is attained by such a heat treatment. |
