Self-heating of dried industrial wastewater sludge: Lab-scale investigation of supporting conditions

► Lab-scale reproducible experiments of dried sludges self-heating. ► Identification of low temperature exothermic processes and supporting factors. ► A sequence of three steps is clear and reproducible. ► Dependence from particle size, supporting the heterogeneous nature of reactions. ► Demonstration that biological process are uncorrelated to self-heating phases.