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In this study, we reported on the influence of gaseous HNO3 treatment on the formation of defects decorated with oxygenated functional groups on commercial graphite felts (GFs). The gaseous acid treatment also leads to a remarkable increase of the specific as well as effective surface area through the formation of a highly porous graphite structure from dense graphite filamentous. The as-synthesized catalyst was further used as a metal-free catalyst in the selective oxidation of H2S in industrial waste effluents. According to the results, the defects decorated with oxygenated groups were highly active for performing selective oxidation of H2S into elemental sulfur. The desulfurization activity was relatively high and extremely stable as a function of time on stream which indicated the high efficiency of these oxidized un-doped GFs as metal-free catalysts for the selective oxidation process. The high catalytic performance was attributed to both the presence of structural defects on the filamentous carbon wall, which acting as a dissociative adsorption center for the oxygen, and the oxygenated functional groups, which could play the role of active sites for the selective oxidation process.