In summary, a facile directive synthesis method of cost-effective, high catalytic activity and environmentally friendly biomass carbon material supported non-noble Nickel catalyst were reported. And the novel catalysts were characterized by HRTEM, XRD, XPS, BET and evaluated their catalytic reactivity in the selective hydrogenation of phenyl acetylene. The biomass starting materials had a great effect on the catalysts' physical properties and catalytic hydrogenation. Compared with the catalyst prepared from shaddock peel, the catalysts Ni/CL, Ni/CLW directly prepared from lignin had a denser layered and rod-shaped structure, and the catalysts' active nickel metal particles were evenly distributed in the carrier and had a larger pore volume. The reaction temperature, hydrogen pressure, reaction time, and solvent also had a great influence on the selective hydrogenation of phenyl acetylene using Ni-based catalysts. Under optimized mild reaction conditions (2Mpa H2, 80 °C, 4 h), the Ni/CLW catalyst showed good catalytic activity with 97% conversion and 84% of desired product 1a selectivity. Here, the facile synthesized lignin-based carbon material supported non-noble metal Ni catalyst inhibited the adsorption of olefins, which prevent over-hydrogenation of styrene, and obtained the high-yield and selective production of styrene. This simple synthetic green, economical and sustainable biomass-based nickel-based catalyst provides a potential application prospect for the large-scale industrial application of biomass-based carbon material catalysts.