It is not like the heat sheet, for a start if you were to heat it then you would ruin the mat completely, infact it looks as if it would melt / warp as its pretty rigid.

I would say (although Im no expert) that it is a mat purely to be used to blend inks, without getting those horrible lines that you so often get if you put too much ink on your applicator or brayer.

It is brilliant to use to brayer cards, makes it so much easier as you can really control the shading , can blend colours easily on the mat and you dont get the brayer lines. You no longer need to do the brayer wheelie and run off excess ink onto photocopier paper, so you save a massive amount of ink.
I'm finding that as there is less ink flying around my workspace , Im also keeping my hands a lot cleaner which means I am not getting those very frustrating ink marks on my artwork.