If you cut a chunk of graphite into two, you break many bonds between atoms (that you couldn’t “rebond” together by holding the parts together); if you were to continue this process forever until all bonds are broken, would you be left with liquid graphite?
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No, but a very, very fine powder.
The reason why two freshly broken pieces of something don’t stick back together is actually unique to the kind of atmosphere we have on Earth. Our atmosphere bonds with the freshly exposed surface (oxidisation), and you need a tremendous amount of force on both pieces to “squeeze” the atmosphere back out of the crack, if at all.
If it wasn’t for air, everything would cold-weld together, whether you wanted it to or not.
Interestingly, this was a significant problem for some vehicles and satellites we sent up in space, where various metal components would fuse together.
So, back to your original question, why a powder? Because the particles would be oxidised. So what if we did it in a vacuum? Well.. it would just sort of stick back together into a solid clump like what you started with, but significantly weaker because of the seriously messed up lattice.
To turn it into a liquid, you need lots and lots of heat. (~3873K)
You’d have a pile of dust. Graphite is what makes up the lead of a pencil, and the mark a pencil makes is basically what you’re describing. It would make a thin dust that sticks to surfaces fairly well.
Now, a big enough pile of graphite dust would be similar in some ways to liquid. It can flow, expands to fill the container, can make wave patterns when vibrated, etc. We refer to materials like this as granular fluids and there’s a lot of interesting physics behind them. They aren’t liquids, but they share some similarities.
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