Epoxy Coating of inner & outer ring of Spiral Wound Gaskets

On one of our gas pipeline projects, the piping spec mentions following requirements for spiral wound gaskets:

"For general hydrocarbon services, gaskets shall have passivated zinc
plated carbon steel outer and inner rings and 316L stainless steel spiral windings with non-asbestos filler material such as graphite or graphite impregnated Teflon."

One vendor has come back with his proposal to use Epoxy coating instead of Zinc plating. Those having knowledge on this subject please advise regarding this change proposal. Does Zinc plating cause any problems during service life?

Can epoxy coating last for long term and is it effective?

Regards,

Girish Masand
Perth, WA, Australia

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Received on Wed Mar 21 21:59:00 2007