On November 15, Tiannai Technology (688116.SH) closed at 153.48 yuan, a cumulative increase of 147.74% during the year, with a total market value of 35.6 billion. According to SMDC's multi-factor quantitative scoring system, Tianna Technology scored 181 points (1000 points system), ranking 186th on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

Counting from the first day of listing, Tiannai Technology is an 8 times stock of the Sci-tech Innovation Board, and is the only company in the top ten stocks that comes from the field of new materials. As a group of "veteran-level" companies on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, Tiannai Technology's share price has been out of the main wave since April. What is the gold content of the hard technology of this nanomaterials company?

Fundamentals: "King of Nanomaterials" Rides on the East Wind of New Energy Vehicles

Tiannai Technology is a sci-tech innovation board company in Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province. It was listed on the sci-tech innovation board in September 2019. The initial price is 16 yuan.

The editor believes that Tianna Technology is actually a lithium battery concept stock in the field of new materials, a typical target that fully benefits the growing penetration of new energy vehicles.

According to the financial report and prospectus, Tiannai Technology is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of nano-scale carbon materials. The main products are carbon nanotube powder, carbon nanotube conductive paste and carbon nanotube conductive masterbatch, which are mainly used in lithium batteries. , Conductive plastics and other fields, and ultimately applied to new energy vehicles, 3C products, energy storage batteries and other products.

Popular science: Carbon nanotubes are tubular nanoscale graphite crystals, which are seamless nanoscale tubular structures formed by single or multilayer graphene layers curled around the central axis at a certain helix angle. Carbon nanotubes are generally classified into single-wall carbon nanotubes and multi-wall carbon nanotubes. Since carbon nanotubes were discovered, they have been widely concerned and favored by many industries because of their excellent mechanical, electrical, thermal and other properties.

Compared with other materials and other nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes have a more unique structure and excellent performance, and are called "the king of nanomaterials". As a new type of material, carbon nanotubes have shown great potential application value in the fields of electronics, energy, communications, chemical engineering, biology, medicine, and aerospace.

We know that the main materials of lithium batteries include cathode materials, anode materials, electrolytes and separators. In previous articles, SMDC conducted a detailed analysis of Rongbai Technology, a ternary high-nickel cathode material company: Eight Great Forces | Seizing the market is more urgent than R&D technology! Congrongbai Technology’s rapid expansion, puts forward some thoughts on the lithium battery industry

Conductive agent is a key auxiliary material of lithium battery, which can increase the conductive contact between active materials and increase the transmission rate of electrons in the lithium battery in the electrode, thereby improving the rate performance of the lithium battery and improving the cycle life.

The main line of Tiannai Technology's products is simple and clear-carbon nanotubes (CNT) and related products are used as one of the raw materials of conductive agents and are mainly used in the field of lithium batteries.

It is understood that the substitution of carbon nanotubes (CNT) in the conductive agent for carbon black affects battery performance mainly as follows: 1) Improve the conductivity of lithium batteries and effectively increase the rate performance; 2) Improve the energy density of the battery; 3) Improve the battery Cycle life, etc. The application of high nickel cathodes, silicon carbon anodes and fast charging requirements are expected to accelerate the application of CNT.

Different from the two battery technology paths of lithium iron carbonate and ternary, on the one hand, conductive agents need to be added to both iron lithium and high nickel. Benefiting from the increased demand for energy density, the proportion of CNT addition is gradually increasing, and it is expected to gradually increase from 1.5% On the other hand, carbon nanotubes are accelerating the replacement of traditional conductive agents. The domestic CNT share will be 40% in 2021, and overseas will be less than 20%. There is still room for increase in the share.

Operating power: both volume and price rise, and the profitability of a single ton of CNT is stable

From 2018 to 2020, and from January to September 2021, the growth rate of Tiannai Technology's revenue and net profit scale has increased year by year, and the growth rate is significant. After a short-term decline in net profit in 2020, in the first three quarters of this year, Tiannai Technology’s performance has fulfilled market expectations, achieving both volume and price increases for new energy vehicles under the high boom.

According to the financial report, in the first three quarters, Tiannai Technology achieved revenue of 912 million yuan, +188.72% year-on-year; net profit attributable to parent company was 204 million yuan, +165.27% year-on-year; deducted non-net profit was 176 million yuan, +215.25% year-on-year.

In Q3, Tiannai Technology Division achieved revenue of 389 million yuan, + 151.17% year-on-year, and +27.98% quarter-on-quarter; net profit attributable to the parent was 83 million yuan, + 89.17% year-on-year, and +23.84% quarter-on-quarter; net profit deducted from the parent company was 72 million yuan , +111.39% year-on-year and +24.25% month-on-month. In terms of profitability, Q3 gross profit margin was 32.5%, a year-on-year decline of 8.11pct and a month-on-month decline of 1.86pct.

In fact, the rapid growth of Tiannai Technology's main business scale is due to the penetration rate of new energy vehicles. In 2017, the company’s main business revenue increased by 130.42% compared to 2016, mainly due to the rapid development of new energy vehicles since 2017, which has driven the rapid increase in demand for carbon nanotube conductive paste products in power lithium batteries and other fields; the company in the first half of 2019 Revenue from main operations increased by 43.39% from the same period last year, mainly due to the continued development of new energy vehicles, the shipment of ternary power lithium batteries and the demand for carbon nanotube conductive paste continued to rise, and the company's carbon nanotube conductive paste sales This was due to the increase in revenue over the same period last year.

The top three customers of Tiannai Technology are BYD, Ningde, and ATL, which have entered LG and Panasonic, and cooperate with SABIC and Total in the field of conductive plastics.

Innovation: CNT products continue to iterate

When it first went on the market in 2019, Tianna Technology has developed three generations of carbon nanotube products, and all of them have successfully achieved mass production. Among them, the related performance of the company's second-generation carbon nanotube products is already in a leading position in China, and the third-generation product further improves the aspect ratio of carbon nanotubes and enhances its electrical conductivity on the basis of the second generation.

It should be pointed out that in the early stage of the promotion of carbon nanotubes as a conductive agent in lithium batteries, carbon nanotubes are generally supplied to lithium battery manufacturers in the form of powder for trial use, but the conductive effect is not ideal.

In this situation, the carbon nanotubes are not effectively dispersed in the electrode material of the lithium battery, and are still in agglomerated state, which reduces the conductivity of the carbon nanotubes. In response to the above situation, Tiannai Technology used a variety of dispersion equipment including high-speed dispersers, colloid mills, homogenizers, ultrasonic equipment, etc. to prepare the corresponding carbon nanotube qualified dispersion slurry, and finally successfully selected the most suitable dispersion Agents, dispersion methods and equipment, introduce carbon nanotubes into lithium batteries in the form of slurry, and realize commercialization and industry.

At present, Tiannai Technology can mass produce the first to third generation products. In 2021, the shipment volume of the first generation products will be about 20%, the second generation products will account for about 70%, and the third generation products will be close to 10%. Product share has increased rapidly.

In 2021, the company has reserved the fourth to sixth generation products, and samples of the fourth generation products have been released. As of the announcement on July 5, 2021, Tina Technology currently has an annual production capacity of 2,000 tons of carbon nanotube powder and 30,000 tons of conductive paste. After the planned production capacity is reached, the company will have an annual production capacity of 8,000 tons of carbon nanotubes, 300 tons of carbon nanomaterials, 106,000 tons of conductive paste, and 7,000 tons of conductive masterbatch.

Venture capital: Harvest Fund to lighten up, Invesco Great Wall to increase

The third quarterly report shows that most of the top ten shareholders of Tiannai Technology have lightened their positions. Undoubtedly, the lithium battery sector is the only sector with a trend increase during the year, and the extent to which the sector’s valuation will overdraft future performance is self-evident.

Invesco Great Wall New Energy Industry Fund increased its holdings of 372,000 shares of Tiannai Technology during the reporting period; Harvest Smart Car and two foreign investors both lightened their positions in the third quarter.