Nitrogen-doped carbon powder (NCP) with high and controllable dopant concentration was facilely synthesized via hydrothermal treatment of sucrose under ammonia followed by calcination. The dopant concentration of the as-synthesized carbon powder can be easily adjusted in the range of 4.37-17.82 wt.% by careful choice of the reaction conditions. The precursor with high nitrogen content was prepared by aminization reaction between sucrose and ammonia in hydrothermal condition, amine groups are successfully introduced into the precursor molecule, which groups convert finally to pyridinic-like and graphitic-like structure in the followed heat-treatment process. Various techniques, including the elemental analysis, TG-DTA, XPS, XRD, SEM and FTIR, were employed to characterize and assess the compositional and structural properties of the precursor and final nitrogen-doped materials. The present work propose a novel method for synthesis of highly nitrogen-doped carbon materials. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.