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(11) | EP 2 105 318 A8 |
| (12) | CORRECTED EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
| Note: Bibliography reflects the latest situation |
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| (54) | Image forming method and apparatus |
| (57) The image forming method forms an image on a medium (P) by using ink and treatment
liquid. The ink contains coloring material and thermoplastic resin particles in a
solvent, and the treatment liquid contains a component which aggregates the coloring
material. The image forming method includes: a treatment liquid deposition step of
depositing the treatment liquid onto the medium (P) to form a treatment liquid film
on the medium (P); an ink droplet deposition step of ejecting and depositing droplets
of the ink onto the medium (P) to form an ink film on the medium (P) on which the
treatment liquid film has been formed; and an ink film drying step of heating and
drying the ink film under conditions where T < MFT+20°C until α declines to a state
not higher than 2.0 from a state exceeding 2.0, where T is a surface temperature of
the ink film, MFT is a minimum film forming temperature of the thermoplastic resin
particles, and α is a solvent content rate of the ink film formed on the medium (P)
in the ink droplet deposition step defined as a volume of the solvent per unit surface
area in the ink film divided by a volume of solid material per unit surface area in
the ink film.
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