are compounds containing various halogenated alkyl aryl or alkyl aryl groups as long as the size of the groups does not dilute the halogen content below about 30 wt the component b may be monomeric dimeric or oligomeric a most preferred group of halogen containing additives includes brominated alkylated aromatics aromatic ethers benzoates and phthalates these are represented by the general structures i ii and iii below where n is an integer from 1 to 5 for structures i and ii and n is an integer from 1 to 4 for structure iii r and r 1 are independently an alkyl group containing from 1 to 16 carbon atoms preferably less than 12 carbon atoms more preferably less than 10 carbon atoms too large an alkyl group may cause a decrease in physical properties of the resulting polyurethane foam one or more n o or s atoms may be present in the substituent represented by r the compounds particularly the benzoates and phthalates may optionally be blended together a bromine content of 30 is useful preferably component b may contain up to 42 or more bromine by weight it will be understood that individual molecules may have varying degrees of bromination where n is an integer but when considering a halogen containing additive in bulk the degree of bromination on the aromatic ring is a positive number greater than one and less than or equal to 5 for structures i and ii and greater than one and less than or equal to 4 for structure iii representing an average degree of bromination benzoates and phthalates are known commercially available compositions brominated phenyl ethers may be prepared as described in wo 03 064361 components a and b are used in ratios that are readily determined to provide the.