Abstract: To achieve the comprehensive utilization of associated cobalt resources in a sedimentary-hydrothermal re formed iron deposit,a systematic process mineralogy study was conducted on the sulfur-copper mixed concentrate from the ben eficiation process.Multiple techniques,including chemical analysis,X-ray fluorescence (XRF),scanning electron microscopy (SEM),electron probe microanalysis (EPMA),and optical microscopy,were employed.The results reveal that cobalt is prima rily hosted in pyrite (0.149% Co) and chalcopyrite (0.045% Co) via isomorphism,with a combined distribution rate of 87.07%.The independent cobalt mineral,cobaltite,is present in very low abundance (0.06%).Flotation exploratory tests confirmed that cobalt reports to the sulfur concentrate during copper-sulfur separation,with a grade ranging from 0.14% to 0.16%.The harmful element arsenic is also concurrently enriched in the sulfur concentrate (0.59% As),which is difficult to remove effectively and severely impacts the concentrate quality.Attempts to further concentrate cobalt from the sulfur concen trate showed that while cobalt could be enriched to 0.30% in the tailings,the arsenic content simultaneously increased to 2. 20%.This study concludes that separate recovery of cobalt from this material is not feasible due to its dispersed occurrence and the difficulty of arsenic separation.It is,therefore,recommended that cobalt be recovered as a associated component of the sul fur concentrate.