BACKGROUNDNew copolymeric membranes were offered for the efficient delivery of antibiotic drug using newly developed chitosan-copoly(semicarbazide-formaldehyde-phenylhydrazine) blend membranes. The membranes were characterized by elemental, spectral and scanning electron microscopy to establish the chemical structure and morphology. Swelling behavior, drug loading capacity and drug release studies was extensively studied. Furthermore, the membranes were assayed for antibacterial activity against selected bacterial strains viz. Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhimurium. RESULTSThe chitosan membrane had excellent loading efficiency with 85.55% whereas, if the composition of chitosan is reduced to half, the loading efficiency becomes 36.37%. The chitosan membrane released 79.31% of drug within 2.5 h, where as low chitosan content membranes have released the drug to about 24.82 and 30.34%, respectively. However, the average chitosan content membrane had shown a slow and steady drug release at 50.34 and 62.75%. CONCLUSIONThe composition of chitosan content also governs the swelling behavior i.e. the increased chitosan content showed excellent swelling behavior leads to profound drug delivery. The results indicate that the chitosan blend membranes have effectively released the antibiotic drug in a short time and proved to be a promising candidate for the drug delivery. The kinetic study establishes that the drug release is well fit with the Higuchi model and follows swelling and diffusion-controlled mechanisms. (c) 2016 Society of Chemical Industry