Lined Pipe in Tampa, FL

Tampa Bay sits at the mouth of a supply chain found nowhere else in the country: phosphate rock from the Bone Valley mines goes in one end, sulfur and ammonia come in across the port docks, and phosphoric acid and fertilizer come out the other. Every step of it eats carbon steel. Marspec Technical Products fabricates plastic-lined pipe spools and supplies the lined fittings and valves for that service, with spools shipping to Tampa Bay from Fairhope, Alabama. Call (251) 625-4949 or contact us online.

We have spent more than half a century in plastic-lined piping, and this page covers the bay and the phosphate district behind it.

From Bone Valley rock to the Port Tampa Bay docks

The mines: Polk, Hillsborough, Hardee and Manatee counties

The Bone Valley district is the largest source of phosphate rock in the United States, and its active mines at Four Corners, South Fort Meade and Wingate Creek dug close to nine million tonnes in 2024. Draglines strip the matrix, water guns slurry it, and the beneficiation plants wash, size and float it: fatty-acid rougher flotation at an adjusted pH, a sulfuric acid scrub to strip reagent off the concentrate, then amine flotation to reject silica. Those reagent, acid scrub and pH-control lines are small-bore and corrosive, which is why 1/2" through 2" PTFE-lined spools and lined diaphragm valves turn up in so many wash plants.

The chemical plants: Bartow, New Wales and Riverview

Three large concentrate plants sit between the mines and the bay: Bartow, New Wales outside Mulberry, and Riverview on the east shore. Together they are rated for roughly 3.7 million tonnes of P2O5 a year as phosphoric acid and more than 8 million tonnes of DAP, MAP and enhanced granular products. Each burns molten sulfur to make sulfuric acid, digests ground rock in it, filters off phosphogypsum, concentrates the filtrate from about 28 to 54 percent P2O5 and ammoniates it in granulation. The streams in between are why lined pipe exists in Florida: wet-process acid carrying hydrofluoric and fluosilicic acid, chlorides and gypsum fines; fluorosilicic acid recovered from the fume scrubbers; acidic pond water; dilute sulfuric acid in wash circuits; ammonia scrubber liquor. Stainless pits in hot fluoride-bearing acid. PTFE and PVDF do not.

Sulfur, ammonia and the port

Port Tampa Bay is Florida's largest port by cargo tonnage and moves more than 30 million tons of bulk cargo a year. Molten sulfur comes across the dock at Berth 22 and prilled sulfur at Berths 300 and 301. Anhydrous ammonia lands at terminals in the port and at Port Sutton and moves by pipeline to the three acid plants. Phosphate and fertilizer leave from Berth 204 and from Port Manatee. Terminal piping for scrubber water, acid drains and hypochlorite is lined-pipe work.

Apollo Beach and the water plants

Beside the Big Bend generating station at Apollo Beach, the regional seawater desalination plant takes up to 44 million gallons a day of the station's warm cooling water and makes as much as 25 million gallons of it into drinking water by reverse osmosis, dosing coagulant, sulfuric acid, hypochlorite, bisulfite, antiscalant and caustic along the way. Big Bend itself now runs a 1,090-megawatt combined-cycle plant in place of its 1970s coal units. Across the bay, the city's main water plant on the Hillsborough River produces around 80 million gallons a day, and up to 120 at peak, with ferric sulfate and sulfuric acid coagulation, ozone, lime and caustic, chlorine and ammonia, and fluoride. The liquid coagulant, acid, caustic and fluoride feeds belong in lined pipe behind a lined check valve; lime slurry is abrasive but only mildly corrosive, so it usually runs in carbon steel, HDPE or rubber-lined pipe.

What we recommend for phosphate and water chemistry

• PTFE-lined spools, fittings and valves for hot wet-process phosphoric acid, fluorosilicic acid, evaporator condensate and any line carrying free fluoride, with vented housings and heavy-wall liners because HF permeates PTFE
• PVDF liners, within velocity limits, where gypsum or rock fines make abrasion the issue, and for dilute sulfuric acid that carbon steel cannot handle
• PTFE liners for ammonia scrubber liquor, pond water, cooling tower blowdown and ambient hypochlorite as well, with polypropylene available for the scrubber liquor, pond water and blowdown where a specification calls for it
• PTFE- and PFA-lined ball, plug, butterfly, diaphragm, check and sampling valves, with lined diaphragm valves preferred on acid carrying solids and lined plug valves used there too, accepting that solids can score the sleeve
• Lined strainers, expansion joints for evaporator loops, spacers, spectacle blinds, sight glasses and solid PTFE pipe

Spools, fittings and heat for the bay

We fabricate custom spools 1/2" through 12" in carbon steel or 304/316 stainless housings, in straight lengths up to 20 ft, and we match the bolt pattern and face-to-face of the lined system already in your rack so a replacement drops into a turnaround window. Fifty-four percent acid thickens and grows crystals as it cools, and ammonium phosphate solutions salt out in an idle line, so we also supply clamp-on steam heaters, electric tracing and heat-transfer compound from our temperature maintenance range for transfer lines and loading racks.

Built for an acid plant 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 minimum 10,000-volt spark test before crating. Liner pressure, vacuum and temperature ratings are on our technical details page.

Serving Tampa, the phosphate district and Port Manatee

We ship to Tampa, Riverview, Apollo Beach, Plant City, Mulberry, Bartow, Lakeland, Fort Meade, Wauchula, Port Manatee and Bradenton. Send the isometrics or a marked-up P&ID, call (251) 625-4949 or contact us online, and we will quote the spool package.

FAQ: Lined Pipe in Tampa, FL

What liner holds up in 54 percent wet-process phosphoric acid at a Bone Valley concentrate plant?

PTFE. Wet-process acid carries hydrofluoric and fluosilicic acid, chlorides and sulfate that pit 316 stainless, especially hot out of the evaporators. PTFE resists all of them up to its temperature rating, though HF permeates it, so the housings are vented, and PVDF is a good second choice where gypsum fines make abrasion the bigger problem.

Can you supply lined pipe for fluorosilicic acid recovered at a Tampa Bay fertilizer plant or dosed at a water plant?

Yes. Fluorosilicic acid attacks glass, steel and most alloys. We supply PTFE-lined spools, lined diaphragm and ball valves and lined check valves for recovery, storage and feed lines, including the product that goes to municipal water plants for fluoridation.

A lined spool failed in the middle of a turnaround at Riverview or New Wales. Can Marspec match it?

Send the face-to-face dimension, flange rating, size and liner type, and we will build a replacement to the same dimensions, spark test it and ship it from Fairhope, Alabama. Custom spools built to field dimensions are what we do.

Do you supply lined piping for the Apollo Beach desalination plant chemicals and Tampa's water plant?

We do. Sulfuric acid, ferric sulfate, sodium hypochlorite, sodium bisulfite, caustic and fluoride feed lines at Apollo Beach and on the Hillsborough River are typical small-bore lined pipe, with lined diaphragm valves for throttling and lined check valves at the pump discharge.