The earliest mention of centrifugal fans was in 1556 by Georg Pawer (Latin: Georgius Agricola) in his book De Re Metallica, where he shows how such fans were used to ventilate mines [REF].
One of the most important developments for the mining industry was the Guibal fan, which was patented in Belgium in 1862 by the French engineer Théophile Guibal.