JULIA. More room for dreams.

With the new JULIA mask, we rethought a tried-and-tested approach. Many details will be familiar at first glance, yet feel surprisingly different. The fit, for instance. The mounting surface of the mask cushion is the same as with CARA, our globally best-selling nasal mask. With a design adapted to the overall small shape of JULIA, the mask cushion looks even smaller.

The exhalation system lives up to the Löwenstein standard with a quiet and diffuse flow. Based on the established design, exhaled air flows through the slits under the elbow toward the mask tube and disturbs neither patient nor bed partner.

Besides its proven attributes, JULIA offers something new. The mask has an unobstructed field of vision with no forehead support. The patient can keep to a favored evening routine of reading a book or watching TV while wearing glasses and a mask. It’s possible to doze off without any discomfort.

At Löwenstein Medical, we are working on medical devices for the future. JULIA is sustainable and entirely “Made in Germany”. A mask for the future.

Sustainability has become a regular part of our daily lives. We devote our time to issues such as packaging waste, solar energy and climate protection. We ask how we can make our own contribution to a more secure future.

It’s a question we also put to the Patient Interface Team at Löwenstein Medical. We think about masks every day. How can we combine these important issues to develop a more sustainable mask?

Everyone was eager to get started. We got into discussions about how our products could be “resource-friendly”, “renewable”, “recyclable”. Once we’d come up with the topics, we got into the details.

Mask production consumes electricity and water. But how much exactly? How can we conserve our resources and cut consumption? Many conversations with our suppliers revealed that sustainability was making inroads. Solar power was used in production, transport routes were shortened, packaging waste was prevented or reused.

We turned our attention to the conventional production of dyed textiles, which uses vast amounts of water, electricity and chemicals¹.

Sustainability at Löwenstein

We start by reducing consumption and using renewable, i.e., sustainable raw materials. We imagine using only bioplastics for the mask someday. Right now, that remains just a vision. Initial tests show that bioplastic material cannot meet the tough quality requirements that masks, which are classified as medical devices, are subject to. Even such setbacks help us make progress and give our suppliers additional knowledge they can put into improvements as we work together toward our shared goals.

One goal for packaging has been achieved. Eighty percent of the packaging for JULIA is made of sugar cane, a renewable raw material.

During the project, we learned about “more circularity, fewer one-way streets.” In other words, generate as little waste as possible and keep raw materials for as long as possible in the circular economy. Each mask part should be made of a single material so it can be recycled separately. We designed JULIA for recycling. Each part can be fed into a specific channel in the recycling loop. Or rather, “could” be. Disposal laws differ among countries, so not every country allows medical devices to be put into the closed cycles.

Perhaps you now understand our interest in sustainability. We’ve put some of our ideas into practice while we continue to work on new ones that will take our masks into a sustainable future.