Chrysler is currently the only manufacturer that mass produces a CNG-powered pickup truck, the Ram 2500. In their quest to find with a more efficient packaging solution for the CNG tanks, they have come up with clever idea inspired by human lungs.

So how does this work? In the human longs there are countless individual sacks called alveoli which together expand the lung’s air capacity. Chrysler is using the same approach to improve the packaging of CNG tanks.

This way they not only manage to store more Compressed Natural Gas in a normal sized tank, they benefit from more flexibility in design as well. Current CNG tank designs also are limited to cylindrical shapes to accommodate the pressure at which the gaseous fuel is stored.

CNG-powered cars are gaining more and more momentum, not just because of their cost-effectiveness – CNG has per-gallon-equivalent cost-advantage of approximately $1 compared with gasoline – but also because they produce fewer carbon dioxide. What’s more, a CNG-petrol hybrid car enjoys far greater range than normal vehicles. Take Chrysler’s Ram 2500 for instance. On a single fill-up, the truck can travel 255 miles on CNG and a total of 745 miles when equipped with an available 35-gallon reserve gas tank.

The lung-inspired CNG tank design, supported by grant from Michigan Economic Development Council’s Technology Innovation Challenge, is currently patent-pending. A production version should emerge in a year or so.