Lined Pipe in California

California handles more corrosive and high-purity chemistry than almost any other state, in places as different as a Wilmington refinery, a Silicon Valley wafer fab and a Central Valley tomato cannery. Marspec Technical Products fabricates PTFE-, PVDF- and polypropylene-lined steel pipe spools and supplies lined fittings and valves for that kind of service, with spools shipping to California from our shop in Fairhope, Alabama.

If you have a spool drawing, a valve list or a corroded line that needs to come out, call us at (251) 625-4949 or contact us online. We have spent more than half a century in plastic-lined piping, and custom spools built to field dimensions are the heart of what we do.

Industries in California that run on lined pipe

Refining in the Los Angeles basin, Contra Costa County and Kern County

California still refines well over a million barrels of crude a day at a handful of large complexes: the South Bay cluster around El Segundo, Torrance, Carson and Wilmington, the Bay Area refineries at Richmond and Martinez, and smaller plants near Bakersfield. Alkylation units circulate sulfuric or hydrofluoric acid, hydrotreaters throw off sour water and spent caustic, and refinery wastewater plants dose sodium hypochlorite and ferric chloride. Lined pipe carries spent acid, caustic wash and sour water without pitting, and lined plug and ball valves hold tight shutoff on the same lines.

Lithium, geothermal brine and borates in the desert

Imperial County's Salton Sea geothermal field pushes hot, metal-laden brine through roughly a dozen power plants, and the direct lithium extraction projects planned around it would pull lithium from that brine with acid pretreatment, ion exchange and sorbent circuits. In Kern County, the borate mine at Boron is the largest open pit in California and supplies roughly a third of the world's refined borates by dissolving ore in hot liquor and crystallizing borax and boric acid. Searles Lake near Trona has yielded soda ash, boric acid and sodium sulfate from brine for a century. Hot chloride brine and sulfuric acid are hard on even high-nickel alloys. PTFE and PVDF liners resist them, within each liner's temperature limit, inside a carbon steel housing that costs a fraction of solid alloy.

Semiconductors, biotech and ultrapure water

Silicon Valley remains home to specialty wafer fabs, MEMS and photonics lines, while the Bay Area and San Diego hold the nation's largest biotech clusters. These plants move hydrofluoric, sulfuric, nitric and hydrochloric acids, hydrogen peroxide, ammonium hydroxide, solvents and 18-megohm deionized water, and steel contact spoils the purity of every one of them. PVDF-lined pipe gives low extractables for DI water loops, PTFE handles mixed acids and solvents, in vented housings where HF or HCl is present and with heavy-wall liners for HF, and lined diaphragm valves keep dead legs and wetted metal out of the flow path.

Food, wine, water treatment and steel

California makes roughly four-fifths of American wine and processes most of the nation's tomatoes and almonds in the Central Valley between Sacramento and Bakersfield, and clean-in-place systems in those plants circulate hot caustic, nitric and phosphoric acid and peracetic acid daily. The Carlsbad desalination plant, the largest seawater plant in the Western Hemisphere at 50 million gallons a day, and the big water and wastewater works of Los Angeles, Orange County and the Bay Area dose sodium hypochlorite, ferric chloride, sulfuric acid and sodium bisulfite. In the Inland Empire, the flat-rolled steel mill at Fontana runs a pickling line on hydrochloric acid. In every case the liner keeps iron out of the product and lined valves do not seize on hypochlorite.

What we supply to California plants

We fabricate custom lined pipe spools up to 20 ft long in 1/2" through 12" sizes, with PTFE, PVDF or polypropylene liners inside carbon steel or 304/316 stainless housings, built to your isometrics. The same liners go into our lined pipe and fittings: elbows, tees, crosses, laterals, reducers, flanged spacers and instrument tees.

For isolation and control we supply plastic-lined valves in ball, plug, butterfly, diaphragm, check and sampling styles with PTFE or PFA liners. Diaphragm valves suit hypochlorite and slurry service, lined plug valves suit acid headers, and lined sampling valves give a safe draw point on a caustic or acid line.

Around the pipe we offer plastic-lined piping accessories: lined strainers, expansion joints, spacers, spectacle blinds, sight glasses and solid PTFE pipe. Where a line carries 50 percent caustic that crystallizes on a cool Central Valley night, our temperature maintenance products keep it moving: clamp-on steam heaters, electric heat tracing and heat-transfer compound, sized to stay inside the liner's temperature rating.

Built to the standards your spec calls for

Our lined pipe and fittings comply with ASTM F1545, and our fittings conform dimensionally to ANSI B16.5. Lined fittings are welded to ASME B31.3 by welders certified to ASME Section IX. Every lined pipe spool and fitting gets a minimum 10,000-volt spark test before it ships, which is how we catch a pinhole in the shop instead of in your acid line. Liner ratings for pressure, vacuum and temperature are on our technical details page.

Serving Los Angeles, the Bay Area, the Central Valley and the desert

We ship lined pipe and valves nationwide from Fairhope, Alabama, and California orders go out the same way, whether the job is in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Torrance, Carson, Richmond, Martinez, San Jose, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton, Bakersfield, San Diego, Carlsbad, El Centro or Fontana. Send your drawings or a description of the service and we will quote it. Call (251) 625-4949 or contact us online to get started.

FAQ: Lined Pipe in California

Which liner should a Salton Sea geothermal or lithium project specify for hot brine?

For hot chloride brine and the acid and sorbent circuits used in direct lithium extraction, PTFE is the usual choice because it holds up across the widest temperature and chemical range. PVDF is a good option for cooler acid streams where abrasion from suspended solids matters. Send us the temperature, chloride level and pH and we will recommend a liner.

Can lined pipe handle the hydrochloric acid in a Fontana-style steel pickling line?

Yes. PTFE-lined pipe is widely used for hydrochloric acid at the concentrations and temperatures found in pickling and acid regeneration systems, in vented housings because HCl permeates the liner, and lined plug valves provide the isolation; polypropylene-lined pipe is available for acid below about 150 F where a specification calls for it, because permeation derates it in hot HCl. We also supply lined strainers to catch scale ahead of pumps.

Do you supply lined pipe for deionized water in Silicon Valley fabs and Bay Area biotech plants?

We do. PVDF-lined pipe and PFA-lined valves add no metal ions to high-purity water and tolerate the acid and peroxide used to sanitize the loops, though PVDF is not for hot caustic. Carbon steel or stainless housings give the pressure rating that plastic pipe alone cannot.

How do California refineries use lined pipe and valves?

Common applications in the Los Angeles and Bay Area refineries include spent sulfuric acid from alkylation, caustic treating, sour water, chemical injection skids and the hypochlorite and ferric chloride feeds at the wastewater plant. Our spools are built to ASME B31.3 and spark tested, so they fit refinery piping specifications.