Sustainable EOR Through Ion-Engineered Produced Water: A Smart Water Feasibility Study

Tashdeed Rifa Raisa; Nowrin Afrin; Afsana Khanom Monika

doi:10.38032/scse.2026.4.72

Authors

Tashdeed Rifa Raisa Department of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology, Dhaka-1216, Bangladesh
Nowrin Afrin Department of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology, Dhaka-1216, Bangladesh
Afsana Khanom Monika Department of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology, Dhaka-1216, Bangladesh

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.38032/scse.2026.4.72

Keywords:

Smart Water, Ion Tuning Produced Water, Enhanced Oil Recovery, Dilution-Enrichment Strategy, Wettability Alteration

Abstract

As the international oil and gas sector focuses on sustainable, cost-effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods globally and in regions that face water scarcity, smart water flooding has surfaced as an effective solution. The tuning of injection water's ionic composition improves oil displacement efficiency by altering reservoir wettability. However, using freshwater or seawater still presents environmental and economic challenges. This research explores reusing produced water as a sustainable base fluid for smart-water EOR techniques. Produced water was treated through low-cost ion-tuning methods, i.e. dilution and selective ion exchange, to match standard smart-water formulations through its ionic composition for both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. More than 85% of treated samples met the desired ionic balance, while the modified ion composition increased SO₄²⁻ from 1,010 mg/L to 2,500 mg/L suggests an approximate 10% improvement in oil recovery based on correlations previously developed to explain wettability alteration. This work presents a low-cost solution to produced-water recycling which has the capacity to scale up and would suit Bangladesh's ongoing and consistent development towards sustainable water management and EOR.

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