Lined Pipe in Kentucky

Kentucky's chemical industry lives on its rivers: the Tennessee at Calvert City, the Ohio at Louisville and the Big Sandy at Catlettsburg, and the acids, caustics and chlorine those plants move need piping that does not rust from the inside out! Marspec Technical Products fabricates PTFE-, PVDF- and polypropylene-lined pipe spools and fittings and supplies lined valves, accessories and temperature-maintenance products for that work. Call 251-625-4949 or contact us online for pricing.

We are based in Fairhope, Alabama, ship nationwide, and have been in plastic-lined piping for more than half a century. Kentucky's plants are an easy fit for what we do, and the winters there make our traced and jacketed lines more than a nice-to-have.

Kentucky industries that specify lined pipe

Calvert City

On the Tennessee River in Marshall County, the Calvert City complex runs an ethane cracker, a chlor-alkali plant, a vinyl chloride monomer unit rated at more than a billion pounds a year and a PVC plant, with fluorochemical and specialty polymer producers as neighbors. That is the complete vinyls chain in one zip code: wet and dry chlorine, 50 percent caustic, saturated brine, ethylene dichloride, and the hydrochloric acid that comes off VCM cracking and goes back to oxychlorination. Hydrofluoric acid shows up next door. PTFE liners carry wet chlorine and HCl at any concentration without the nickel alloys those streams would otherwise need and take the caustic and brine as well, polypropylene is available for the caustic and brine where a specification calls for it, and PTFE-lined plug and ball valves hold tight on chlorine where metal seats do not.

Rubbertown

West Louisville's Rubbertown district, built for synthetic rubber during the Second World War, still holds about eleven large chemical plants along the Ohio making synthetic rubber, acrylic monomers and resins, formaldehyde and phenolic resins, calcium carbide and fluorinated specialties. The piping there sees sulfuric and hydrochloric acid, caustic, hydrogen fluoride, formaldehyde, monomer and solvent streams, and chlorinated organics, a list that keeps alloy budgets high unless the lines are lined steel. PVDF-lined pipe is a frequent choice for the solvent and monomer services, PTFE for acids and HF.

Catlettsburg, Ghent and the Ohio River metals corridor

Northeast Kentucky's refinery at Catlettsburg processes about 307,000 barrels of crude a day, which means alkylation acid, spent caustic, sour water, amine and catalyst-regeneration chemicals in volume. Upriver at Ghent, one of the largest stainless steel producers in the country runs roughly 1.4 million tons a year of melting, rolling and finishing, and stainless finishing means mixed nitric-hydrofluoric pickling acid and its rinse and regeneration circuits, a service where PTFE-lined pipe and lined diaphragm valves are the standard answer. A newer plate mill at Brandenburg and aluminum rolling at Russellville add more pickle, etch and caustic cleaning lines, and the coal-fired stations along the Ohio run limestone-slurry scrubbers and acid-dosed wastewater systems.

Then there is the rest of the Commonwealth: distilleries making 95 percent of the world's bourbon, each with clean-in-place systems cycling caustic and acid; battery cell plants under construction at Glendale and Bowling Green with electrolyte solvent and solvent-recovery systems; automotive paint shops at Georgetown and Louisville with phosphating and pickling lines; and municipal water plants on the Ohio and Kentucky rivers dosing sodium hypochlorite, ferric and fluoride chemicals every day.

What we ship to Kentucky

Spools and fittings: custom lined pipe spools built to your isometrics in lengths up to 20 ft, plus lined elbows, tees, crosses, laterals, reducers and instrument tees, all 1/2" through 12" in PTFE, PVDF or polypropylene with carbon steel or 304/316 stainless housings.

Valves: PTFE- and PFA-lined ball, plug, butterfly, diaphragm, check and sampling valves for chlorine, HCl, mixed acid and caustic isolation and sampling. Accessories: lined strainers, expansion joints, spacers, spectacle blinds, sight glasses and solid PTFE pipe.

Heat: jacketed lined pipe, clamp-on steam heaters, electric tracing and heat-transfer compound. Kentucky winters drop well below the 54 F point where 50 percent caustic starts to crystallize, and an untraced caustic header across a pipe rack at Calvert City or Louisville will plug on the first hard freeze. Our temperature maintenance products keep caustic, molten sulfur and viscous monomers moving. Flange data, liner thicknesses and torque tables are on our Technical Details page.

Built to the standard, tested to 10,000 volts

Our products 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. Every lined part gets a minimum 10,000-volt spark test before it is crated; any spark is a rejected liner.

Serving Louisville, Lexington, Northern Kentucky and the river towns

We ship to Louisville, Lexington, Georgetown, Frankfort, Bowling Green, Owensboro, Henderson, Paducah, Calvert City, Ashland and Catlettsburg, Covington and Northern Kentucky, Carrollton and Ghent, Elizabethtown and Glendale. Send a spool list, a valve takeoff or a drawing of the line that keeps failing, and we will quote custom spools to replace it. Call 251-625-4949 or contact us online.

FAQ: Lined Pipe in Kentucky

Which liner do you recommend for by-product hydrochloric acid at Calvert City?

PTFE. It is unaffected by hydrochloric acid at every concentration and handles the temperatures that come off VCM cracking and absorption, and we supply spools, fittings and PTFE-lined plug or ball valves so the whole line is one liner.

Can lined pipe carry mixed nitric-hydrofluoric pickling acid at a Kentucky stainless mill?

Yes. PTFE-lined carbon steel is a common specification for mixed acid supply, rinse and regeneration circuits within the liner's temperature range, and lined diaphragm valves give clean shutoff. Send us the acid concentrations and bath temperature and we will confirm the liner and pressure rating.

Do bourbon distilleries use lined pipe?

For the caustic and acid clean-in-place supply lines and chemical storage runs, yes. Lined carbon steel costs less than stainless for those services. A PTFE liner gives the chemical resistance the CIP chemistry needs, and polypropylene is available where a specification calls for it.

How do you keep a caustic line from freezing on an Ohio River pipe rack in January?

With jacketed lined pipe, clamp-on steam heaters or electric tracing packed in heat-transfer compound. We size the heating for the line and ambient temperature and ship it with the spools from Fairhope, Alabama.