Certain ordinary organic salts, such as edetate disodium, sodium tartrate, potassium sodium tartrate and sodium citrate were found to have universal and efficient assistant effect for liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite in common organic solvents to produce pristine graphene. Up to 123 times enhanced exfoliation efficiency was observed when sodium citrate was introduced into an exfoliation system consisting of natural graphite powder and dimethyl sulfoxide. TEM, AFM, Raman spectroscopy, EDX, TGA, and FTIR analysis showed graphite was successfully exfoliated into single or few-layer graphene nanosheets which were free of defects and oxides. The method is simple, effective, safe and economical. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.