Selective oxidation rapidly decomposes biomass-based activated carbons into graphite-like crystallites

Graphite-like crystallites are the predominant structures that are strongly bonded together via amorphous carbons in biomass-based activated carbon. Here, we demonstrate a scalable process for efficiently decomposing biomass-based activated carbons into independent graphite-like crystallites with a high yield of 78 wt% by a selective oxidation scheme to rapidly break the amorphous carbon parts between graphite-like crystallites. The results show that the obtained graphite-like crystallite-based nanomaterials with tunable dimensions and morphologies has remarkable features, such as high water solubility and a strong tendency to self-assemble into a film structure.