m ardestani

Iran's economy has been hit hard by economic sanctions over the past four decades with varying degrees of intensity. Despite the lack of direct sanctions on the agricultural sector, it is expected that the macro variables of this sector, including its economic growth, will not be immune to the secondary and indirect effects of sanctions. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the effects of economic sanctions on the economic growth of Iran's agriculture by estimating the linear ARDL model using the statistics of 1992-2019. The study results indicated, on the one hand, the positive and significant impact of net agricultural capital inventory, agricultural labor and productivity of net agricultural capital inventory and on the other hand, no significant impact of economic sanctions on Iran's agricultural value added in the short and long run. In order to maintain the economic growth of the agricultural sector in the face of sanctions, it is suggested that increasing investment in the agricultural sector, reducing agricultural depreciation, increasing the employment of agricultural graduates and adopting policies to support agricultural production might be emphasized by the policy-makers.

Considering the effects of pollutants of industrial origin, such as heavy toxic metals-containing wastewater, on rivers and surface waters and the importance of their removal, in this study, the preparation, characterization and evaluation of zinc oxide nanophotocatalyst based on magnetic organic-metallic frameworks (ZnO@IL-mSiO2@Cr-MIL-101), abbreviated as ZISM nanophotocatalysts, was evaluated in removing of lead (Pb2+) and arsenic (As3+) metals from aqueous samples.

This experimental study was performed using a ZnO-based nano-photocatalyst and a reactor consisting of an ultraviolet (UV) source and a reaction chamber for water samples contaminated with lead (Pb2+) and arsenic (As3+). To determine the removal efficiency of contaminants by ZISM nano-photocatalyst, the effect of various parameters including contaminant concentration, amount of nano-photocatalyst, pH and reaction time were investigated.

The results showed that with increasing the amount of ZISM nano-photocatalyst and pH, the removal of lead and arsenic increased. The maximum removal of Pb2+ and As3+ was obtained 99.8 and 98.3, in initial concentration of 5 mg/L, nano-photocatalyst dose of 250 mg/L, pH =8 mg/L and reaction time of 60 min.

According to the results, the ZISM nano-photocatalyst emerged as an efficient and recyclable nano-photocatalyst, which was a potential and environmentally friendly process for the removal of toxic heavy metals as hazardous water pollutants. This photocatalyst showed good recyclability in 5 consecutive periods.