Ethanol, a key renewable biofuel, is vital for decarbonizing transportation and industry. Accurate simulation of its combustion is crucial for optimizing engines and burners, especially in diffusion flames common in diesel engines, turbines, and furnaces. While detailed kinetic models offer precise predictions, they are computationally expensive, prompting the creation of reduced and global mechanisms.However, these vital modeling tools remain scattered across the literature, and no systematic overview exists for models validated specifically for ethanol diffusion flames. Researchers currently lack a consolidated guide on which mechanisms are available, what reduction methods were used, and against which specific non-premixed experimental targets they have been validated.This scoping review addresses this gap by systematically identifying, mapping, and categorizing the existing literature on both detailed and reduced kinetic mechanisms for ethanol diffusion flames. We will collate mechanisms from numerical and experimental studies, classifying them by their size, reduction methodology, and the specific diffusion flame configurations and properties used for their validation.This review will facilitate appropriate model selection for diffusion flame simulations, highlight key progress, identify unaddressed research gaps, and ultimately accelerate the development and deployment of cleaner, more efficient ethanol combustion technologies.