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Currently over 845 million people are believed to be living under severe water scarcity, and an estimated 2.8 billion people across the globe are projected to come under serious water scarcity by the year 2025, according to a United Nations (UN) report. Seawater desalination has gained more traction as the solution with the most potential for increasing global freshwater supplies amongst other solutions. However, the economic and energy costs associated with the major desalination technologies are considered intrinsically prohibitive largely due to their humongous energy requirements alongside the requirements of complex equipment and their maintenance in most cases. Whilst forward osmosis (FO) is being touted as a potentially more energy efficient and cost-effective alternative desalination technique, its efficiency is challenged by draw solutes and the draw solutes recovery step in FO applications alongside other challenges. This paper looks at the present situation of global water scarcity, and a brief leap into the major desalination technologies employed. A closer look at the key drivers of FO as a seawater desalination technique in their individual domain and its outlook as an technology are further highlighted.

The effect of quenching media on the micro-structural, hardness and impact properties of medium carbon steel has been studied using air, water and engine oil as quenchants. Mild steel was chemically analyzed and observed (micro-structure) as received and when quenched in the respective media. These were carefully subjected to hardness and impact tests accordingly with a view to ascertain its hardness and impact strength. The mild steel had higher hardness of 260 BHN in water and higher impact strength of 86.56 J in engine oil. The mild steel is identified as medium carbon steel

This study seeks to determine the nutritive potential of Moringa oleifera Leaf (MOL) meal as replacement for soybean meal in the diet of Oreochromis niloticus fin­gerlings. Five diets of 25 % crude protein were formu­lated with MOL meal substituting soybeans (14.68 level of inclusion) at 25 %, 50 %, 75 %, 100% and con­trol diet had no inclusion of MOL. Twenty fingerlings were randomly allocated in replicate for each treat­ment in outdoor hapas and fed 5 % body weight for a of 56 days, weighing was done weekly and feed ad­justed appropriately. Results obtained revealed that 50 % substitution of MOL meal for soybean meal gave the best growth and nutrient utilization, beyond this, growth significantly reduced, hence for better perfor­mance of O. niloticus, MOL should not be included more than 7.34 %.