Carbon materials derived from biomass are drawing increasing attention due to its advantages in economical as well as ecological production. Among the biomass resources to be utilized for that purpose, lignin possesses unique characteristics: it is available in bulk quantity as a low-value by-product from the pulp and paper industries and its chemical structure based on complex aromatic networks provides excellent precursor for grahitic carbon materials such as graphene. The existing techniques to convert lignin to carbon materials require long processing time, complex steps and higher temperatures, thus increasing the production cost and hindering its commercialization. Here an alternate low-cost, one-pot synthesis method utilizing organic solvent gel combustion technique is developed to yield crystalline graphene oxide as an end product. Capacitor performance of the developed graphene oxide was investigated in terms of the parameters involved in the synthesis procedure. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)