A heat exchanger for both sensible and latent energy, enthalpy, has walls or plates that extend between two air streams that also permit and assist recirculation and filtration. The walls between air streams consist of a substrate with a coating on the substrate. The coating, in combination with the substrate material original porosity, is used to control final porosity and hydrophilic/oleophilic characteristics. By control of the pore size and surface material characteristics, there can be almost a total recirculation, a recirculation of only gases (filtering out solid particles), a transfer of only moisture and heat, or a transfer of only heat. The pore size and characteristics of the coating along the path of the air streams can be varied so that different types of exchange can be obtained along the path of the air streams.