Black cobalt solar selective coatings were prepared by thermal oxidation of electroplated cobalt metal on copper and nickel substrates. The optical properties and structure of the black cobalt selective coating for solar energy utilizations were characterized by glow discharge spectrometry (GDS), ultraviolet-visible-near infrared (UV-VIS-NIR) spectrometer, atom force microscopy(AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). The optical properties of optimum black cobalt selective coating prepared on copper substrate were a solar absorptance of 0.82 and a thermal emittance of 0.01. From the GDS depth profile analysis of these coatings, the concentration of cobalt particles near the interface was higher than at the surface, but oxygen concentration at the surface was higher than at the interface. These results suggest that the selective absorption was dominated by this chemical composition variation in the coating. The surface of this film exhibited morphology with root-mean-square(rms) roughness of about 144.3nm. XPS measurements data showed that several phases of Co coexist($Co_3O_4$,CoO) in the film.