Despite the many successful syntheses
and applications of dopamine-functionalized
TiO
2
nanohybrids, there has not yet been an atomistic understanding
of the interaction of this 1,2-dihydroxybenzene derivative ligand
with the titanium dioxide surfaces. In this work, on the basis of
a wide set of dispersion-corrected hybrid density functional theory
(DFT) calculations and density functional tight binding (DFTB) molecular
dynamics simulations, we present a detailed study of the adsorption
modes, patterns of growth, and configurations of dopamine on the anatase
(101) TiO
2
surface, with reference to the archetype of
1,2-dihydroxybenzene ligands, i.e., catechol. At low coverage, the
isolated dopamine molecule prefers to bend toward the surface, coordinating
the NH
2
group to a Ti
5c
ion. At high coverage,
the packed molecules succeed in bending toward the surface only in
some monolayer configurations. When they do, we observe a proton transfer
from the surface to the ethyl-amino group, forming terminal NH
3
+
species, which highly interact with the O atoms
of a neighboring dopamine molecule. This strong Coulombic interaction
largely stabilizes the self-assembled monolayer. On the basis of these
results, we predict that improving the probability of dopamine molecules
being free to bend toward the surface through thermodynamic versus
kinetic growth conditions will lead to a monolayer of fully protonated
dopamine molecules.