Lined Pipe in Charleston, WV

Chemical Valley is a nickname Charleston earned, and the plants that earned it still line the Kanawha River from Nitro down through Institute and South Charleston to Belle. Marspec Technical Products fabricates PTFE-, PVDF- and polypropylene-lined pipe spools and supplies the lined fittings and valves that carry the acids, caustic, chlorinated intermediates and solvents those plants run on, with spools shipping to the valley from Fairhope, Alabama. Call (251) 625-4949 with a line list or a single replacement spool.

After more than half a century in plastic-lined piping, we have seen a great many Kanawha Valley drawings. Contact us online with isometrics, a flange specification or field dimensions.

The valley, plant by plant

Nitro and Institute

Nitro took its name from the explosives works the government built there in 1917 and has been a chemical industrial park ever since. Downriver at Institute, the plant the government built for synthetic rubber in 1943 is now a 460-acre industrial park where ketones and carbinols are made from acetone, where several chemical producers operate as tenants on shared utilities and rail, and where a 200,000-metric-ton-a-year methanol plant, dismantled in Brazil and rebuilt on the Kanawha, began converting natural gas to methanol in 2022. Acetone derivatives mean acid catalysts and caustic washes; methanol synthesis means boiler feedwater chemistry and demineralizer regeneration with sulfuric acid and caustic.

South Charleston and Belle

The South Charleston plant on Blaine Island opened in 1925 as the successor to the 1920 Clendenin plant usually called the first petrochemical plant in the world, and it still produces hundreds of specialty chemicals and polymers for coatings, personal care, pharmaceuticals and oilfield use. A few blocks away, a chlorinated dry bleach plant chlorinates cyanuric acid made from urea into the sanitizers that go into pool chemicals and detergents, with 36 percent hydrochloric acid in its tank farm. At Belle, where ammonia was first made from coal in 1926, the site now turns out agricultural intermediates in units with nickel-alloy reactors, bulk handling and barge and rail service. Chlorine, hydrochloric acid, caustic, amines and chlorinated organics are the common thread, and a PTFE-lined carbon steel spool, vented where chlorine or hydrochloric acid can permeate the liner, handles every one of them at a fraction of the cost of an alloy spool.

Brine, barges, boilers and water

The whole industry grew out of salt. Brine wells along the Kanawha fed the first chlorine and caustic plant at Belle in 1915, and by 1930 South Charleston had the largest chlorine producer in the world. Caustic, acids and brine still move through the valley by water: the Winfield and Marmet locks pass roughly 11.6 million and 8 million tons of cargo a year between the river's 68 marine terminals. At Winfield, the 2,933-megawatt John Amos plant, the largest in its utility's fleet, runs wet flue-gas desulfurization on all three units, which means limestone slurry, chloride-laden scrubber water and gypsum dewatering lines; the older Kanawha River plant at Glasgow retired in 2015. The Kanawha Valley water treatment plant, the largest in the state with about 85,000 customers in eleven counties, switched from chlorine gas to sodium hypochlorite in 2021, and the Charleston sanitary plant treats up to 28 million gallons a day with high-purity oxygen activated sludge.

The media and the liner that fits

• Wet chlorine, hypochlorite and chlorine-saturated brine: PTFE-lined pipe with PTFE-lined plug or ball valves
• Hydrochloric acid at any concentration and sulfuric acid to about 70 percent: PTFE or PVDF liners
• Caustic soda, amines and chlorinated solvents: PTFE, with polypropylene available for cool dilute caustic where specified
• Flue-gas desulfurization scrubber blowdown: PTFE- or PVDF-lined spools with lined strainers, polypropylene where specified; the abrasive limestone slurry itself goes in PVDF with velocity limits, or in rubber-lined pipe, which often outwears both
• Hypochlorite and coagulant feed at water plants: PTFE-lined spools with lined diaphragm valves, PVDF for coagulant and dilute or lower-pH hypochlorite and polypropylene for coagulant only, where specified

What we ship to the Kanawha Valley

Custom lined pipe spools and fittings from 1/2" through 12", lined with PTFE, PVDF or polypropylene inside carbon steel or 304 or 316 stainless housings, fabricated to your isometric in straight lengths up to 20 ft. Lined elbows, tees, crosses, reducers and laterals match, and a replacement spool for a rack that went in during the 1970s is built to the field face-to-face so it bolts in without adapters.

Lined valves cover ball, plug, butterfly, diaphragm, check and sampling patterns in the same size range. Accessories include lined strainers, expansion joints, PTFE spacers and spectacle blinds, sight glasses and solid PTFE pipe. The valley has real winters, and 50 percent caustic begins to crystallize in the mid 50s F, so outdoor caustic and amine lines get clamp-on steam heaters or electric tracing from our temperature maintenance line rather than a jacketed pipe.

Built to the numbers on your spec

Our lined pipe and fittings comply with ASTM F1545. Fittings conform dimensionally to ANSI B16.5 and are welded to ASME B31.3 by welders certified to ASME Section IX, and each lined pipe spool and fitting passes a spark test at a minimum of 10,000 volts before it leaves the shop. Liner ratings by size and temperature are on our technical details page, and the rest of the line, from vessel accessories to custom PTFE parts, is on the other products page.

Serving Charleston and the Kanawha Valley

We ship lined piping to Charleston, South Charleston, Institute, Dunbar, Nitro, St. Albans, Winfield, Belle, Marmet, Glasgow and Montgomery, and down the Kanawha to Poca and Point Pleasant. For a replacement spool, a lined valve package or a full turnaround order, call (251) 625-4949 or contact us online.

FAQ: Lined Pipe in Charleston, WV

Our Institute or South Charleston unit has lined pipe that went in decades ago. Can you match it?

Yes. Lined pipe built to ASTM F1545 with ANSI B16.5 flanges is interchangeable at the flange no matter who made the original, so we build replacement spools to your field dimensions and they bolt up to the existing PTFE-lined headers.

Which liner do you recommend for hydrochloric acid and chlorinated bleach intermediates in a South Charleston plant?

PTFE for wet chlorine, hot hydrochloric acid and any stream with free chlorine in it, in vented housings because chlorine and HCl permeate PTFE. PTFE covers the cool and dilute acid as well; PVDF handles hydrochloric acid at moderate temperatures, and polypropylene is available for cool dilute acid where a specification calls for it. We confirm concentration and temperature before we quote.

Can lined pipe be used on barge unloading lines at a Kanawha River chemical terminal?

It can, and dock lines for caustic, hydrochloric acid and brine are a common place to find it. Lined expansion joints take up movement at the dock, lined ball valves give tight shutoff, and a lined strainer protects the transfer pump.

Can you fabricate a replacement spool for an outage at a Belle or Nitro plant?

Custom spools built to field dimensions are what we do most. Send the field dimensions, liner and flange specification and we fabricate, spark test and ship from Fairhope, Alabama. Call (251) 625-4949 and we will tell you where it fits on the schedule.