The paper presents the results of a study on obtaining N-enriched active carbons from bituminous coal and on testing its use as an electrode material in supercapacitors. The coal was carbonised, activated with KOH and ammoxidised by a mixture of ammonia and air at the ratio 1:3 at 300 degrees C or 350 degrees C, at different stages of the production, that is, at those of precursor, carbonisate, and active carbon. The products were microporous N-enriched active carbon samples of well-developed surface area reaching from 1577 to 2510 m(2)/g and containing 1.0 to 8.5 wt% of nitrogen. The XPS measurements have shown that in the active carbons enriched in nitrogen at the stage of precursor and at the stage of carbonisate, the dominant nitrogen species are the N-5 groups, while in the samples ammoxidised at the last stage of the treatment the dominant nitrogen species are the surface groups of imines and/or nitriles, probably accompanied by amines and amides. The paper reports the results of a comprehensive study of the effect of the structure and chemical composition of a series of active carbon samples of different properties on their capacity performance in water solutions of H(2)SO(4) or KOH, with the behaviour of positive and negative electrodes analysed separately. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.