We study the chemical erosion of hydrogen-supersaturated carbon due to bombardment by hydrogen isotopes H, D, and T at energies of 1–30eV using classical molecular dynamics simulations. The chemical structure at the hydrogen-saturated interface (the distribution of terminal hydrocarbon moieties, in particular) shows a weak dependence on the mass of the impinging atoms. However, the sputtering yields increase considerably with increasing projectile mass. We analyze the threshold energies of chemical sputtering reaction channels and show that they are nearly mass independent, as expected from elementary bond-breaking chemical reactions involving hydrocarbons. Chemical sputtering yields for D impact are compared with new experimental data. Good agreement is found for small hydrocarbons but the simulations overestimate the production of large hydrocarbons for energies larger than 15eV. We present a thorough analysis of the dependence of our simulations on the parameters of the bombardment schemes and discuss open questions and possible avenues for development.